Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 237 Daylight is Limited, Walking Towards Death
The empty shell of the abandoned station, like the lingering gasps of a defeated warrior, is vast and heavy.

This place, once the noisiest part of the city's train hub, is now only filled with the metallic resonance and the whistling sound of the wind passing through empty canisters.

The words "Final Station" are still visible on the wall, but they have long been blurred by dust and corrosion, like the cover of an old script that has been repeatedly performed and eventually torn apart, leaving only the remnants of the title.

The morning sunlight slanted through the broken skylight and fractured steel beams, illuminating the scattered rails and rusted train wreckage, like a faint memory in this eternal night—

But this light still has no warmth.

Si Ming sat on the roof of a scrapped train outside the station, his back against the protruding axle of the train body, his legs dangling in mid-air without touching the ground.

He squinted, gazing into the distance—the mysterious city of corpses, slumbering in ruins.

Enveloped in morning mist, its skeleton is faintly visible.

It was a city sculpted by nightmares, as quiet as a madman lost in thought, waiting for night to fall so he could speak again and spit out the madness imprisoned within him, bit by bit.

There were footsteps behind me.

It wasn't a hurried jog, nor was it a silent assassin's stealth.

The footsteps carried a restrained yet firm rhythm, like the first step of a ceremony in an old church—solemn, yet not ostentatious.

Vera stepped forward, her greyish-white hymn cloak gleaming with a cold, silvery light in the broken sunlight.

She held a jug of water and a piece of bread wrapped in an old, faded cloth, the edges of which were hardened.

"Eat some."

Her voice was not loud, but it carried an irresistible gentleness.

It's not an order, but you can't refuse.

Si Ming took the bread and water, took a bite, and the dry, hard texture made his jaw clench.

He chewed slowly, each bite like biting off the edge of a card filled with the footnotes of fate.

“If there’s still fighting tonight,” he said with a laugh, his tone relaxed, “then of course I’ll have to get in alive.”

"How are they doing?"

He asked vaguely, his voice rolling out intermittently from chewing.

Vera followed his gaze.

On the other side of the station, Lynn was squatting down, changing a bandage for Gregory.

The bandage wasn't covering the wound, but rather wrapped around the crack in the arm joint.
It was as if that piece of skin no longer belonged to this era; it was too old, as old as a faded religious text, which could be weathered into dust at any moment.

The old man leaned against a broken piece of steel rail, the mysterious cloak of the Gray Tower draped over his shoulders, but it no longer possessed its former imposing presence.

His hair turned from gray to shiny, his eyelids drooped, and his face seemed to be covered with a layer of gray that no one could get rid of.

He was like a piece of ember about to go out.

“The situation is not good,” Vera whispered. “Especially… Gregory.”

"He is still rational."

"But his body is collapsing."

A rare anxiety appeared in her eyes, not a worry about tactical judgment, but a sense of powerlessness in the face of an "incomprehensible phenomenon".

"It's like... something is stealing my lifespan."

Si Ming frowned, took a bite of bread, and asked softly, "Even the Mysterious Ghosts can't save us?"

Vera shook her head silently.

Her lips drooped, as if she were biting into some kind of bitter taste that she had always been unwilling to admit.

"I let the hymn angels try to reverse it."

"I personally burned two stars of sanity, using my most core Fate-type mystery."

"But—time is an eternal part of life."

"It's not linear, it's a closed loop."

"We can reverse the outcome of fate, but we cannot change the nature of time."

"Because time is not a technique."

"It is—divinity."

These words caused Si Ming's gaze to slowly darken.

He has always been a gambler.

He believes that everything can be resolved.

No matter how seemingly hopeless the path, as long as you're still at the table, there's always a chance to turn things around.

But at this moment, the word "time" was like an invisible hand, taking away his chips and emptying the gambling table as well.

Vera lowered her gaze: "This doesn't seem like normal aging."

"It started from the 'death etched' on his star chart, like some kind of time beacon being lit, and the countdown can no longer be reversed."

“I repeatedly rehearsed the scenario last night.”

Vera sat by the broken stone pillar, her fingers gently lifting the map copy she had obtained from Wang Yichen. Faint wrinkles and bloody fingerprints remained on the paper.

Her gaze swept over one of the densely marked annotations, finally settling on a deeply circled red mark.

"We only have one variable here, which is related to time."

She looked up at Si Ming, her tone calm and firm.

"Nicholas."

“I saw his name in the Paper-Sealed Building,” she whispered. “And on this map, I found the marker for his location.”

"—The preaching sanctuary of the White Night Church."

Si Ming's eyes narrowed slightly, and the pile of cards in his hand paused slightly.

Vera's voice grew softer and softer, and as she spoke, the entire station seemed to grow colder:
"The Church of the White Nights...is never enthusiastic about preaching."

"They are obsessed with 'immortality'."

"What they study is never how to save souls."

"It's about how to drag the corpse out of the cemetery and let it continue to be practiced in their doctrines."

“So they built a church hospital.” She paused, her fingertip lightly tapping a label on the map.

"It wasn't to save people."

"It was for—an experiment."

"Experimenting on how to block aging."

Si Ming lowered his head, his gaze falling on the dark gray patches on the map.

A region located in the southeast corner of the city is circled in red, with clear architectural annotations and hastily written text still remaining at the edge of the ruins.

Those three words were clearly visible:

"The Place of Holy Healing".

Lynn spoke softly from the side, "But we get randomly teleported every night..."

"Who knows if we'll be thrown somewhere else tonight?"

Si Ming bit off the last piece of bread, held it in his mouth, and said with a smile:

"Then—go during the day."

He uttered those words like a pebble thrown into the slumbering lake of fate.

Ripples spread across the water's surface.

The wind finally stirred.

A not-so-gentle wind blew from the end of the tracks past the collapsed archway, carrying dust, scorch marks, and a faint smell of rust, filling the lifeless shell of the abandoned station.

The air seemed to finally begin to turn the page.

Lin Wanqing was walking over, carrying a small medical kit.

She paused slightly when she heard the suggestion to "pass the day," her steps faltering as her eyes darted back and forth between the oracle and the map, a hint of hesitation flashing in them.

"It's almost noon now." Vera's voice drifted slowly from beside the fire, her tone unhurried, as calm and composed as ever.
It was as if her thoughts were constantly running in an ever-burning computational circuit.

"We still have issues with physical reserves, water resources, and our defense equipment is not yet fully integrated."

"If we force ourselves to go out, a two-hour journey is not a safe option."

She tilted her head slightly, her golden hair falling to her shoulder, casting a cold, thin shadow in the morning light.

"Daytime is not necessarily safer than nighttime, Si Ming."

When she said this, there was a gentle admonition in her eyes, like an experienced doctor trying to dissuade a patient who was stubborn to the point of danger.

Si Ming didn't answer immediately. He simply swallowed the last bite of bread, gently licked the crumbs from his fingertips, and his gaze fell on the old town ruins circled in red on the map.

"The Place of Holy Healing".

At this moment, a deep, slightly husky voice broke the tension.

"What are you afraid of?"

Duan Xingzhou walked over, looking relaxed. He was still holding the corner of the map in his hand. He spread it out flat and laid it on the makeshift ammunition box.

He casually pressed a bent piece of steel against the edge of the map, speaking as he looked at the crowd.

“I can take turns with Lin Wanqing to look after Mr. Gregory.”

He paused here, his gaze instinctively sweeping towards Lynn—

It was like a subtle form of comfort.

"You two can conserve your energy and won't have to worry about looking after each other along the way."

His voice carried a deliberately lowered lightness, as if he were pretending that the world was still worth taking it easy, to laugh, so that suffering wouldn't leave him with nothing.

Lynn approached, holding a signal device wrapped in rags in one hand. His black hair was plastered to the side of his face, but his eyes were calm and resolute.

"I agree to deploy."

Those who stayed behind also need a breather.

"And we must find out the true state of that 'hospital' in advance."

She paused, her tone growing even colder:
"Don't wait until nightfall to find out that the place is a live burial pit."

Vera did not immediately refute, but her fingertips twirled lightly along the gold thread edge of her cloak, a subtle unease appearing in her eyes.

“I understand the importance of the Holy Place of Healing,” she said, her voice low.

"But you must understand, what we were looking for in the past was not just medicine."

"Instead, it is about confronting the divine echoes left behind by a sect."

“If Nicholas were still there, that area would likely be beyond human definition.”

"Then let's treat it as—meeting an old friend."

Si Ming interrupted her, stood up with a smile, and the ashes on his body fell with the movement.

He patted his trouser legs and then his cuffs, as if to brush away the dust of last night, along with the whispers of the dead.

His gaze fell on the red circle on the map, which was an inverted pyramid-shaped structural model, clearly marked: The Place of Healing.

“Me, Celian, Lynn, Duan Xingzhou, Lin Wanqing, Gregory.”

As he spoke, he scanned the crowd: "Five people per group, clear operational standards."

"Main objectives: medical supplies, anti-aging drugs."

"Second target: a clue about Nicholas."

Secondary objective: map data update.

“I’ll go.” Lynn nodded first, his tone firm and his eyes unwavering.

She gently pulled Gregory's hand, enveloping his already cold fingers in her palm.

"If there's any way to slow him down..."

She gritted her teeth, her voice sounding like it was being ground out of her throat:

Even if it's just for one day.

"I'll go with you," Lin Wanqing replied, her tone crisp and decisive.

She took a step forward, carrying a medical kit, her steps steady and deliberate.

"The doctor goes first, the pathfinders follow, and old Mr. Gregory entrusts it to us."

Duan Xingzhou chuckled and replied, spreading his arms as if to share the burden with the two women.

His voice still carried a hint of untimely ease, but everyone knew that was his way of being a shield.

Vera opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say one last rebuttal.

But Si Ming's gaze had already settled.

It is not an order.

However, it is equivalent to an order.

It was the kind of look you knew you couldn't dissuade, like a gambler's final gaze at fate before a showdown—no prayer, no repentance, just confirmation of the cards in his hand. He gently raised his hand, flicking his knuckles forward.

"Before the wind comes,"

He smiled and said, a slight upturn at the corners of his lips, his gaze fixed on the direction of the City of Mysterious Bones:

"Fate—it has already been decided."

At that moment, the sparks from the bonfire were blown high into the air by the wind.

And so their journey began.

The wind started to move faster.

It swirled up the ashes from the gaps in the rails, blew across the empty shell of the station, and echoed hollowly between the broken walls and collapsed beams, like the fragments still being chanted by some outdated god.

Everyone started packing quickly.

Si Ming remained nonchalant, twirling a yellowed playing card between his fingers, a slight smile playing on his lips, humming an unknown melody.

His pace seemed relaxed, but his gaze never left the area circled in red on the map.

No one knows whether he was truly at ease, or whether the melody was simply his way of masking his nervousness.

Lin Wanqing sat to one side, tidying up her medical kit. She reclassified the painkillers, antipyretics, and several sanity-stabilizing patches according to their effects and susceptibility to contamination, and then fixed them to the outside of her backpack.

“If these get contaminated, they’re essentially useless,” she muttered to herself, without offering any further explanation.

When she said this, her tone was as calm as if she were repeating a doctor's order a thousand times in a hospice ward.

Duan Xingzhou inspected the battery not far away. The battery casing had been repaired many times, patched up like a jigsaw puzzle.

His technique was clean and efficient, his fingertips steady, like an engineer who no longer waits for orders.

Mu Sisi quietly packed up her supplies, sealing the energy-compressed bread and purified water in metal containers and labeling them with intake priorities.

She divided the package into five parts, distributing them without saying a word, only nodding slightly as each person received the supplies.

Between this brief silence and mobilization, Gregory remained leaning against the corner.

He was breathing faster than in the morning, and although there wasn't much sweat on his forehead, each bead was clearly visible.

Lynn went over and helped him put on his tactical cloak.

Her movements were delicate and restrained, as if each button was fastened to a memory yet to be spoken.

She knelt down and whispered, "Grandpa, you can walk, right?"

Gregory opened his eyes and looked at her.

Those eyes, though already cloudy, shone like an old star.

"It would be a pity if I died in bed."

He took a deep breath, as if pulling life out of his ribs inch by inch, to make room for a single sentence:

"If I die on the road—"

"Then... it's worth it."

Si Ming walked over and extended his hand to him.

"Let's go, sir."

"The next performance is missing an elder to appear on stage."

The moment they stepped out of the station, the wind picked up completely.

Vera stood in the doorway, her cloak billowing in the wind like a curtain about to be drawn back.

She didn't smile; she simply watched them leave.

"Be mindful of the time," she said, her voice steady as a bell.

"The daylight is short."

Si Ming turned to look at her, his fingers holding the playing card, and flicked it slightly.

"rest assured."

"We will bring time back."

Then he turned around and took the first step.

The crowd followed closely behind.

The city's midday hours are not warm.

The sunlight, though strong, seemed to seep in from a crack in the sky that didn't belong here—cold, pale, and unable to reach the depths of the soul.

The city is like a corpse that has been dead for a long time.

Its framework is still there—steel bars, cement, neon light frames, and advertising curtain walls.

But the flesh and blood had long been hollowed out.

It is like a remnant of a technique exiled from civilization, a vast labyrinth pieced together in the form of order.

The road was torn apart by weeds and broken pipes, and the railcar tracks were half-buried in scorched earth and broken glass, like a disordered incantation leading to a past that no one could decipher.

Si Ming walked at the front, his steps steady.

He did not use a sensor.

Only the deck of cards fluttered between his fingers, each movement like a gesture to an unknowable fate.

He walked past a cracked billboard with a faded slogan printed on it:
"The Church of the White Nights—to give life God's purification before its end."

He sneered, tossed out a playing card, and caught it deftly.

"Purification?"

"Don't let them see that the script you wrote makes people sick first."

Lynn remained silent the entire way.

She walked beside Gregory, her pace unhurried and her movements extremely steady.

She measured the elderly man's breathing rate and body temperature every ten minutes, and recorded even the slightest abnormality.

She sewed simple wristbands from strips of cloth cut from her own clothes and gently tied them to the old man's wrists.

"grandfather."

She suddenly spoke, her voice extremely low.

"Did you... really believe in 'immortality'?"

Gregory closed his eyes, but the corners of his mouth slowly curved upwards, as if he were smiling, but also sighing.

"Of course I do."

"Otherwise, why would I have listened to 'White Night's' sermons when I was young?"

He paused, his Adam's apple bobbing, before continuing:
“We were all believers, children.”

"Until we saw—behind the statue, there were metal gears."

Lynn bit her lip and didn't say anything more.

At this moment, Duan Xingzhou spoke up, trying to ease the tension: "Didn't you Gray Tower... also try to create anti-aging mysteries?"

“It was created,” Gregory answered softly.

"But they all failed."

"Because people are not code."

"But time is never linear."

He opened his eyes, his gaze revealing a clarity that emerged after a period of deathly stillness:

You can only enter 'young' once.

"The second time was a 'lie'."

Selene walked at the back of the group, her steps leisurely yet precise.

Her crimson eyes swept across the surroundings without a sound—the dilapidated high-rise buildings, the collapsed tunnel entrances, and the underground sewage wells that were sealed with iron bolts and covered with church symbols.

Her silence was the vigilance of a hunter. Every pause in her gaze seemed to be calculating the shortest distance from the ambush point to the kill point.

She suddenly spoke, her voice low and hoarse, carrying a hint of suppressed frustration:
"The air here... isn't right."

Si Ming paused slightly, turning back to look at her: "You mean—the taste?"

"Yes."

Selene frowned slightly, her gaze sweeping over the main road that stretched into the distance.

"It smells like... disinfectant mixed with incense ash."

"And it won't dissipate."

Duan Xingzhou interjected, "Low air pressure and poor air circulation do indeed make it easier for this kind of thing to accumulate in enclosed spaces—"

“It wasn’t naturally generated,” Celian interrupted him directly.

She raised her head and looked at the building that was gradually coming into full view in front of her, her sense of smell trembling subtly like that of a beast.

"This flavor is 'designed' by humans."

"Used to cover up the bloodshed."

"It makes you subconsciously believe that this is a 'trustworthy medical space'."

"But it's just another setup—a lower-level version of atmosphere manipulation."

Si Ming nodded, a hint of coldness appearing in his eyes: "Then we need to be even more careful."

"A hypocritical stage often hides the most precise knife."

They turned around the last section of the broken bridge and sloping slope.

Ahead, the outline of the square began to appear.

A huge metal plaque tilted and collapsed, half of it covered by dust and corrosion.

Duan Xingzhou squatted down, wiped the banner with his sleeve, and peeled off the yellowed slogan above:
"The Place of Healing"

White Night Church, City Central Hospital, Fourth Headquarters
"We're here," he said, his voice softer than he had expected.

Everyone slowly raised their heads.

The building, like a divine colossus left over from another era, stood before them—

It resembles both a hospital and a temple.

Towering, silent, and solemn, it carries an eerie sense of "purity," as if it has already "purified" countless patients and sinners, and now only awaits new souls to take their place.

The glass curtain walls that were originally the reception hall on both sides of the main entrance are now completely blocked by an unknown type of meat and rusty iron mesh.

Those nets were not for protection, but more like some kind of residual "sacrificial veins," as if something had once broken free from them, and the church had no choice but to seal them with iron and flesh.

On the top floor hangs an upside-down metal clock, its surface rusted, surrounded by weathered ancient Latin inscriptions:

"The Lord will cleanse his life and grant him eternal life."

The two stone lamps in front of the door were still burning, but the light was not flames; rather, it was a kind of eerie green liquid slowly burning, its light dim and undying, as if it were static electricity drawn from the eye sockets of the dead.

The strangest thing was that huge front door—

It is open.

It's as if they've been preparing for this for a long time, waiting for them to step into a theater where the next scene has already been written.

They stood at the doorway, and neither of them spoke.

The wind died down, and the air seemed to hold its breath for the sake of the door.

Si Ming glanced back at the sky—the sun had already passed noon, and the slanting sunlight divided his face in two.

Half of it is in the light.

Half of it is hidden in the shadows.

He narrowed his eyes, smiling like a gambler with a winning hand:

"We didn't wait until nightfall."

"But I think—we have already heard the bells of sermons."

He slowly raised his hand and reached towards the door.

The moment their fingertips touched the heavy door panel, a barely perceptible vibration came through the metal, like a breath from the depths of the earth, as if the building itself was "sensing" their approach.

"Squeak-yah-"

The door slowly opened.

The heavy clanking of hinges shattered the silence of the ruins, like the tolling of bells in some ritual announcing:
Welcome to the hospital.

Beneath their feet lay the true entrance to divine illusions and fleshly experiments.

You thought you were stepping into a hospital ward.

Little did I know—you had already signed the medical record.

(End of this chapter)