After being poisoned by mushrooms, all the strange creatures became fascinated by me.

"Those who leave the gate of light are all considered traitors."

Tang Li said.

Her warning went unheard by others, but in the background, one by one, the eerie employees leaped down the portal.

They were confident in their supernatural abilities and didn't even need parachutes; as long as their feet left the instance, they had already escaped.

but.

A terrified scream.

Qi Cuiming wailed as she curled up in mid-air. She could see the sky of her hometown, but she could not fall, could not escape the clutches of the instance.

The instance, which seemed poised to collapse at any moment, experienced a final, desperate surge of life, squeezing out the last pump of energy from its heart. Thick, purplish-black fleshy limbs burst forth from the depths of the cracked walls, striking directly at each of the strangely falling bodies.

Meanwhile, the strange employees felt an unbearable itch originating from their abdomens. Dr. James reached out to scratch and actually grabbed a thin, flexible blood vessel.

It was part of his body, bursting out from his navel and connecting with the fleshy limbs extending from his copy.

They are seamlessly integrated, like a part that has grown naturally within a massive body.

This scene feels so familiar.

Dr. James repeatedly dissected human bodies to remove infants, and in a desperate trembling and moment of realization, he understood what it was.

...umbilical cord.

The umbilical cord tightly connects them to the copy.

The monsters were like fish with their mouths pierced by iron hooks and hanging upside down. They flipped their bodies upwards, all their strength hanging on the coin-sized connecting surface between their navels and fleshy limbs.

Ouch, ouch! It felt like a part of my body was about to be torn off alive. The skin and flesh around my navel could be ripped off at any moment, yet the flesh was so tough. The excruciating pain swept through my entire body from my abdomen.

It's all a startling irony. They used to force batches of adults to become "babies" to their deaths, and now they are howling and curling up, becoming babies suspended in mid-air by their umbilical cords.

Yes, the copybook is their mother, from which all nourishment and gifts come.

Then, Dr. James realized something with horror.

—If the copy does not allow them to leave.

Weakness permeated his body, and the umbilical cord, like a blood-sucking demon, drained away all the power that had been filling his body.

—If the copy wants to take all of this back.

The four arms struggled eerily, with two of them gradually withering away.

—If they were to be reduced from their supernatural forms to ordinary people.

Even if they could escape the instance and return to the original world.

Will they survive a fall from such a height?

Inside the copy.

Tang Li covered her eyes with her hands, and beads of blood oozed from between her fingers.

What are you waiting for, streamer?

The comments section asked her.

What are you waiting for? Why, even now, would you rather endure the excruciating pain in your eyes than choose to retract your hundreds of incarnations?

A few minutes earlier, Tang Li said to the swollen body: Go back, take your loved ones with you.

—But remember, take me with you too.

A swollen human body, cradling a child, falls endlessly under the blue sky, and at that very moment, tiny pears, one after another, climb onto their shoulders.

Their eyes are my eyes, their hands are my hands.

In the raging wind, the little pears were like warriors. They stood up against the wind, clutching their swollen hair and stretching out their left hands high.

Each palm was surrounded by concentric circles of cyan gold.

My dearest god. Tang Li trembled with pain, curled up in the dying copy, finally lowered her hand that had been covering her eyes, and finally opened them.

Even with their powers completely depleted, those eyes remained dazzling and beautiful, each lens reflecting the sky Tang Li saw, and veiled with a shimmering, watery light due to the pain.

"My beloved god," Tang Li murmured silently.

Please open your eyes.

The ground beneath our feet is the sacrifice I offered.

I once took something from your hand.

This is my offering to you a hundredfold.

Amidst the chanting of prayers, concentric circles of cyan and gold lit up simultaneously in the hands of hundreds of Tang pear figurines, like the eyes of a deity opening.

He looked down upon this unfamiliar world through Tang Li's hand.

"Can you be any braver?" Tang Li asked.

The little people loosened their grip on the swollen bodies, letting the fierce winds in the sky carry them away in all directions.

Wherever they land, that becomes God's new territory, and all the strange things that happen there belong to God's new people.

on the ground.

"Is that... snow?"

Snow in June?

People look up at the sky, but the questions that come to mind are of no concern to anyone.

The aircraft's monitoring camera captured a snowflake. A robotic arm scooped up a snowflake. Qing Fengnian bent down and picked up a snowflake.

"Human experimentation...list of participants."

"Background investigation of human experimental subjects..."

"Experiment Log, Group 78, Day 675"

People slowly read the words on the snow, and they began to tremble. Of course, it wasn't snow; it was evidence of a crime, evidence stained with blood, flowing silently between the black and white words on the white paper.

People scooped up more scattered pieces of paper, a chilling coldness rising from their fingertips, truly like touching snow, touching millennia-old ice. They felt a chill run down their spines under the blazing sun.

Is that how it is?

Lei's Private Hospital, it turns out, hides so many secrets?

The first wail rang out as the middle-aged man pounded on the table in front of his computer: "My mother! I saw my mother!"

victim.

The woman covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes: "Impossible! How could this be? My mother, my mother would never do such a thing!"

Family members.

The investigator outside the door said coldly, "You resigned a week before the 432 incident, and now we've found your name in some of the documents. Please cooperate with the investigation."

The perpetrator.

"Is it you? My daughter! My daughter contracted the supernatural infection after she started dating you! Yet she ended up on the hospital's experimental list? It's you! You transferred the supernatural infection to her! You killed her!"

A fish that slipped through the net.

The world is in chaos; under the bright sunshine, a June snowfall has yet to fall. The wronged spirits of yesteryear seem to weep and laugh, their translucent bodies, slain by violent death, still lingering in the heavy snow.

At this very moment, the lingering chill, having painstakingly penetrated through years of time, finally descended upon this peaceful era.

Gu Xiaomei was still standing in front of the hospital.

She raised her hand to take a piece of paper, her eyelashes drooping, as if she were gently stroking a white butterfly.

My name happened to be printed on the paper.

Experimental subject Gu Xiaomei, experimental subject Gu Xiaoying.

"I'm so sorry." A trembling voice sounded behind her; the middle-aged man was sobbing uncontrollably. "I'm so sorry."

During the 432 incident, he lingered in that empty, ghost town-like hospital for fifty-eight days. He clearly did not come away empty-handed, but both the perpetrator and the victim disappeared.

Those clues ultimately amounted to nothing but empty talk.

His obsession persists to this day.

Gu Xiaomei turned to look at him, at Qing Fengnian's face, where every wrinkle was etched with guilt and remorse.

She offered no blame, no anger, no smile, and no comfort.

"I hated myself just like you did."

She said, in a surprisingly gentle tone, "You have to keep moving forward, carrying everything behind you."

She looked up at the vast expanse of the azure sky, and in her eyes, the pages of paper swirled like birds, each one gleaming in the sunlight.

"At least for now, the sun is out."