A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 225 CST Monday UTC+8: 1:25 PM

When I opened my eyes, I saw an unfamiliar ceiling.

The air was thick with the smell of smoke and a pungent, unpleasant stench. The air conditioning was very strong, and my consciousness regained control of my body.

The first thing Quinn did was reach for the pocket on his chest where the parrot was kept.

Missed.

Not only the parrot, but even the pockets are gone.

Before he could even curse, Quinn reached behind him again.

The boxes used to store equipment are gone too.

He was dressed very casually, but not in Temurian clothes: high-waisted trousers, a floral shirt, and an American-style aviator leather jacket with English lettering, giving him a rather retro and trendy look.

Clearly, the situation of falling into the third level of the abyss has occurred again—his body or cognition has been distorted by the abyss.

Quinn was sitting in a cramped hotel room.

The bed was spotless white, the wallpaper was an old-fashioned European style, and the carpet was covered with new and old black marks from cigarette burns. A yellowish wall-mounted air conditioner blew a strong blast of cold air overhead. There were no appliances like a television, not even an electric kettle. On the cabinet near the door sat a stainless steel thermos, a common sight in rural areas, with a large "囍" (double happiness) character printed on it and a wooden stopper.
Without a doubt, he has once again fallen into the abyss of the "Earth" scene.

Is this the fall zone? Or the contamination zone?
This was clearly a very cheap hotel. When Quinn traveled to the other world, it was hard to find such an old hotel in Jianghai City—even the air conditioner was blowing cold air with the smell of Freon. This refrigerant was gradually phased out as early as 2010 because it would damage the ozone layer. Such a cold air conditioner was not common in his high school days.

On the table was an ashtray full of cigarette butts and a bowl of soup noodles.

A pungent, sour odor wafted from the bowl, which looked like it was polluting the environment. A white styrofoam bowl was wrapped in a red plastic bag containing the soup noodles. Quinn had only ever seen this kind of packaging in documentaries about urban villages in Guangdong Province. The soup was red oil and white broth, with pickled bamboo shoots and fried tofu skin floating on top. It looked like it had been almost completely eaten. The person who ate this bowl of noodles was obviously himself. Two wooden chopsticks stained with red oil were placed next to Quinn.

A flicker of surprise crossed his half-closed eyes. While the dilapidated city on the third level of the Abyss was strange, it happened during his senior year of high school, so there were some clues. But Quinn couldn't recall ever being in such an old-fashioned hotel before.
He doesn't smoke, yet his ashtray is overflowing with cigarette butts.

Quinn felt his pockets and, sure enough, found something.

First, there was a deflated pack of cigarettes, with only three cigarettes left. Does Xu Jiayin, the founder of Evergrande, still have a cigarette business?
A lighter with extremely rough workmanship, its small plastic body covered with an advertisement for 'Amway Nutritional Solution'.

A few crumpled banknotes, printed with the familiar portrait of the great man, five yuan, one yuan, ten yuan, twenty yuan, and a few fourth-generation five-cent banknotes. When I was in elementary school, my grandma would often give me one or two of them, which could buy a vegetarian pancake at the school gate.

Quinn groped his body, trying to find more clues, and his eyes lit up when he touched the back of his pants waistband.

He actually carried a gun?

I pulled it out and examined it in the dim light. It was small and lightweight, with a fully automatic inertial locking mechanism that the Temurian didn't have, and the model number "64" was engraved on the bottom of the grip.

This was clearly not a stolen gun; he even had a holster and magazine strapped to his body. Quinn frowned. Where did this guy get me? Is this still home?
He ran into the bathroom and looked in the mirror on the wall—it was his own ordinary face, and his exceptionally dark eyes, a symbol of the extraordinary. Besides his clothes, his hairstyle had also changed; he had a simple buzz cut and a beard, making him look old and worn.

The toilet was incredibly retro, with no disposable toiletries. The shower head was right above the squat toilet, covered by a curtain with a landscape painting.

Just then, he heard a knock on the door.

咚咚
"Team Leader Zhang, I'm coming in."

The sound of a key turning came from outside the door, and someone entered Quinn's room—he was not anyone Quinn knew from the other world, but a typical old Chinese man.

Whether it's a trend or not, he, like Quinn, wore high-waisted pants with his belt cinched up to his navel, and with his square face, he looked very young.

"Eh? Where is the person?"

He came in but didn't see Quinn. He looked around in confusion and muttered in his thick Jianghai dialect, "Oh dear, he said he wouldn't eat it because it smelled so bad, but he still secretly bought a bowl of snail noodles to try."

"Who are you?" Hearing the voice that suddenly came from behind, the young man was almost startled and turned around to see Quinn looking at him with suspicion like a ghost.

"Damn it! Where did you come from?!" The young man was dumbfounded; why was there no sound at all?

Quinn looked at his face, which gradually overlapped with that of the police inspector from the Jianghai City Narcotics Control Team, yet there were still some differences.

His eyes didn't look old and dignified; instead, they exuded a vibrant energy that came from recent graduation. He had no beard and wasn't lame, making him look much younger.

"Are you... Uncle Liu?" Quinn asked uncertainly.

The young man was terrified and hurriedly waved his hands: "Oh dear! Captain Zhang, I was wrong. I shouldn't have said you stole the snail noodles. And why did you call me uncle? I should be calling you uncle—"

Quinn's pupils dilated suddenly, and his hands trembled slightly.

He took a deep breath.

How are relations between China and the United States this year?

"Huh?" The young man didn't understand why he was suddenly asking this, but he became extremely indignant: "It's terrible, those damn Americans are going too far!"

Is the situation in Ukraine stable?

"They sold all their underwear to America."

What's the state of the real estate market?

"It's hard to say, the government has introduced many policies to encourage home purchases."

What new niche but underrated anime has come out?

"Gundam."

What about the Chinese national table tennis team's performance?

"A crushing defeat. That guy surnamed Wang played terribly. There are so many players on the team who are better than him, yet they still chose him."

Quinn grew increasingly puzzled as he asked questions, muttering to himself, "Could it be another city twisted by the abyss? How come Officer Liu is so young in 2025?"

"2025? What are you talking about?"

The young man corrected himself with surprise:
"It is now 1999."

Quinn was stunned by these words, taking a step back, then another, as if frozen in place. As if countless thoughts were flashing through his mind, he moved his lips, realizing that his idea was very likely correct. His complex expression turned into a faint smile. He laughed so hard that he bent over, squatted down on the ground with a sense of relief, and his body even trembled slightly with laughter.

The world in the abyss is fake.

However, the fact that one instance is from 2015 and the other from 1999 suggests that Temurian can extract different timelines from Earth, allowing heroes born in the same era to travel through time in different centuries.
The time in Tamilan and on Earth is not relative; they exist in different dimensions. If I could return to Earth, would I also be able to choose a past timeline?
At that moment, he truly felt a redemptive joy.

"Wow, Captain Zhang, are you still half asleep from your nap? The neighbors are calling you to an operations meeting."

"An action meeting? What action?"

Looking at his strange behavior, the young man mumbled, "Of course it's a drug bust. Otherwise, why would we be in Guangxi Province?"

(End of this chapter)