Time Traveler Help Hotline

Lan Yun huddled in a storage room that was only one square meter in size, feeling a suffocating sense of oppression coming from all directions.

This was originally a safe house built by the survivors of the previous civilization. Back then, they were driven to nowhere by the omnipresent and contradictory rules, and finally found this place thanks to a prophetic artifact.

When I first pushed open that door, I was almost driven back by what I saw. In the cramped space, rotting food, dried excrement, and vomit clung to the floor, emitting a nauseating stench. There were even bloody finger marks left from desperate scratching on the walls.

If the prophetic artifact hadn't so firmly pointed to this place, they would never have stepped into it.

The walls and floors were covered with frantic graffiti, which also recorded the truth of the world's fall.

Something is moving outside the door again. Is it a ghost? Or a person? I don't know. I only know that whatever it is, an explosion will soon follow. The moment I close my eyes, I can't help but think: Did they break the rules, their bodies swelling like balloons, torn apart from the inside by the rules...?

How much longer can this house protect me?

Am I even still alive?

【snuacdpdanoidanui……

The writing that followed was completely frantic, covered with scratches from fingernails and dried bloodstains. It seems the original owner ultimately chose to leave; there were no human skeletons in the storage room.

Fortunately, the safe house was still functional. Once their injuries had healed slightly, they dared not linger and teleported away, setting a new record for the shortest stay in another world.

Less than three days.

This time, only Lan Yun hid in the storage room. She pricked up her ears and listened carefully to the sounds around her. She was afraid of hearing the woman's mocking voice again, and she was also afraid that she would not be nearby when they died and would not know.

Ignoring her mess, Lan Yun bit her nails in embarrassment. There was a crack on her face that ran from the corner of her left eye to the corner of her right mouth, and her right arm also bore the marks of a break.

Hasty teleportation makes it difficult to land accurately, and in the process of escaping from the teleportation point to the safe house, it is inevitable to break the rules and get injured.

"This world... surely it can kill those two people by now, right?" Lan Yun was troubled.

If she felt a sliver of conscience when she first accepted the mission, now she was filled with deep regret. Now, if she didn't kill them, she would face endless pursuit.

Even the most obtuse person would realize that they bear some kind of mark, and their whereabouts are completely exposed to these two.

Da, da, da.

The footsteps, sometimes light, sometimes heavy, drew closer, and the mechanical heart pounded violently in response.

"Ugh, it's so dirty inside, I don't want to go there."

It was that same relaxed tone... Lan Yun's breath hitched, and she felt she would never forget that voice for the rest of her life.

In a daze, she stood up, grasped the doorknob, and instinctively opened it outwards.

Lan Yuncai was suddenly awakened when the outside light shone in.

"How did I open the door?!" Lan Yun belatedly realized that his body was being controlled.

"Are you still going to run away?" Ji Mo stared at her.

His answer was an empty storage room.

"Sigh." Ji Mo sighed deeply. "Let's keep chasing it."

He didn't like cross-border chases; the feeling of having to rely on external assistance for teleportation was unpleasant.

Although he could also move by breaking through the void, it was ultimately not as convenient as teleportation.

Spatial systems are convenient.

……

This is their 21th journey through the world together.

This is their 26th journey through the world together.

This is the...th world they've journeyed through together.

Lan Yun lay on the edge of a viscous, sulfur-smelling swamp, coughing violently, each cough accompanied by a tearing pain deep in his chest.

Her left arm was bent unnaturally, a result of being squeezed by an invisible force field in the previous world; her right leg was covered with fine, festering wounds from thigh to ankle, as if corroded by acid; her vision had also become blurred, and she always saw double, a sequela of some strange light from another world.

She struggled, using her still-intact right hand and knee for support, trying to crawl to a relatively dry place. This simple movement exhausted most of her strength, leaving her collapsed on the ground, panting heavily.

Lan Yun relied on prior information to carefully avoid all known dangers, like a rat in a sewer. Even so, he was still tormented by an environment unsuitable for human survival.

And those two people...

They strolled through their own backyard as if they were on a walk. Those dangerous spots that had nearly killed her were probably not even considered "speed bumps." They walked past them without even flinching.

Lan Yun even suspected that the other party had deliberately taken a long detour to find her in order to give her some confidence.

"Cough cough... Heh..."

Lan Yun coughed up another mouthful of saliva mixed with black oil, his eyes appearing somewhat unfocused due to the machine's malfunction.

Da da da.

Footsteps, more footsteps.

One is light, the other is heavy.

Stable and composed.

This time, Lan Yun didn't even have the strength to lift her head. She just curled up by the filthy swamp, her body trembling slightly from instinctive fear, but her face was deathly numb.

It failed again.

This thought didn't even cause much of a stir; all that remained was a sense of resignation, like "I knew it."

Resigned to his fate, he felt the dwindling spiritual energy within his body and instinctively activated the teleportation technique.

The light shone again, enveloping the mangled body.

Where to next? It doesn't matter, any world is fine, none of them can stop them anyway. Lan Yun stopped worrying about which world's dangers could defeat those two, completely relaxed his mind, and let the teleportation happen.

As the light faded, Lan Yun expected to face corrosive air or barren landscapes again, but instead, bright sunshine and natural greenery came into view.

Lan Yun's breath hitched.

This is the final stop on their journey together.

"No, this world is the only one I can't accept!" she cried out as if she were committing an intolerable, common-sense error, desperately wanting to jump to the next world.

However, the deadly footsteps were already sounding behind them.

"Oh? This place is... different." Jiu Chonglou looked around this peaceful world with great interest. Every world he had been before was an apocalyptic world.

The string that had been taut for over a dozen worlds snapped with a crack. Squeezing out the last bit of strength, Lan Yun turned and lunged at Ji Mo, her fingernails aimed at his eyes.

The action came to an abrupt halt halfway through.

Ji Mo's hand moved with lightning speed, precisely gripping her throat and easily lifting her off the ground. Lan Yun kicked helplessly, waves of suffocation washing over her, her prized teleportation skill seemingly malfunctioning and remaining unresponsive.

"The chase is over," Ji Mo said.