Chapter 314: We’re Going Home (End of Main Text)

Chapter 314: We're Going Home (End of Main Text)

Forgot something?

Qin Fei couldn't remember.

That was only natural. If he could remember, he wouldn't have forgotten it in the first place.

Exploring the hidden secrets behind it was important, but it couldn't be done by merely straining one's mind.

He would probably understand everything after clearing the instance.

For now, Qin Fei put this matter aside and began to think about how to leave the instance.

Since the instance was constructed based on his memories, it was easy to associate it with things related to the mental world.

Dreams? Mirrors? Self-hypnosis?

Any of these could potentially be the key to breaking through, so Qin Fei decided to try them one by one.

Since he was already lying in bed, he might as well start with dreaming.

The young man closed his eyes peacefully.

To find a way to end the instance from within a dream, he first needed to master his own dreams.

The next morning, after a full night's sleep, Qin Fei had to admit a reality.

Not everyone can achieve a lucid dream.

...

"Xiao Qin?" The office director walked up to Qin Fei and curiously stared at his computer screen. "What are you researching? Oh, dreaming? Can that even be researched?"

The screen was filled with multiple web pages, their titles compressed and abbreviated, making it hard to read fully, but most of the visible text was about human dreams and self-awareness.

Qin Fei felt no guilt for being caught slacking off at work and admitted straightforwardly, "Yeah, I did some research on this topic before, and recently some students came to discuss it with me."

The director, who knew nothing about it, nodded and left, feeling somewhat bewildered.

Qin Fei's primary job was psychological research, so no one doubted the truthfulness of his words. After getting the green light from the director, he delved deeper into academic papers and educational videos throughout the afternoon.

Third day.

Qin Fei took a day off and didn't go to the office.

After a whole day of effort, his research on lucid dreaming finally showed some initial results.

Qin Fei felt he had acquired a wealth of theoretical knowledge; all that was missing was practical experience.

Hard work paid off, and this time he successfully achieved a lucid dream.

The special thing about lucid dreams is that the dreamer can completely control their dream, becoming the absolute ruler of the dream world.

Qin Fei wanted to use this method to break free from the world constructed by his memories and self-consciousness.

Unfortunately, although he managed to create a dream, upon waking up, he still found himself within the instance.

"..."

Qin Fei sat up halfway, leaning against the headboard, staring blankly at the room in front of him.

In his dream, he successfully created a scene where the instance dissipated, the nightmare-like tales vanished, and he finally returned to the real world.

But when he woke up, everything reverted to its original state.

This feeling was truly uncomfortable.

It seemed that leaving the instance through dreams was not feasible.

Qin Fei silently crossed out this option in the mental notebook in his mind.

Next, Qin Fei began other attempts in earnest.

First, mirrors.

But that didn't seem right either.

Over the past two days, Qin Fei had scrutinized every mirror in his house, touching them, flipping them, and even smashing them, but none of these methods worked.

Hypnosis.

Just like lucid dreaming, it was useless.

The idea of finding a solution internally was wrong, so he turned his attention outward.

Qin Fei took a week off and, using the neighborhood as the starting point, formulated a meticulous exploration plan based on the map.

This world was too realistic; if he hadn't caught some flaws on the first day he woke up, he might still be unaware of its peculiarities.

What Qin Fei planned to do was to explore more areas on the map.

The wider the area, the more likely it was to reveal loopholes.

And the method to leave the instance might be hidden among these loopholes.

Although there had been no danger in this instance so far, and it could even be described as peaceful and comfortable,

Qin Fei still didn't dare to let his guard down.

Any instance has a time limit.

If one fails to leave before the final deadline, the fleeting freedom will dissipate completely.

Days passed, one after another.

Qin Fei's exploration extended from the residential area to the surrounding streets and then spread throughout the entire district.

Yet, he found nothing.

It seemed as if the system truly intended to trap the players within the instance forever.

Could it be that there was no way to escape?

...

On the fourth day of the instance, Qin Fei made an exaggerated decision.

He boarded a plane bound for Lin City.

In this incredibly realistic world, all searches and explorations seemed futile.

The young man carried no luggage, traveling alone to the airport and purchasing a ticket for the next available flight.

The plane ascended into the light blue sky, the streets and cities below gradually shrinking until they vanished into the clouds.

The scheduled flight duration was one hour. An hour later, Qin Fei slowly opened his eyes.

He had fallen asleep on the plane.

This was highly unusual.

A mere hour was far too short for Qin Fei to succumb to sleep.

An unusual feeling surrounded him, reaching its peak as Qin Fei stepped off the plane.

He did not arrive in Lin City.

Instead, he found himself back in his own city once again.

Unable to leave this city, Qin Fei became calmer instead.

The instance map is limited, which is a significant advantage for players. The key to clearing the instance must be hidden within the city, making it clear.

Not finding it in the previous days was likely due to the vastness of the urban area.

A more precise approach was necessary; otherwise, it would take a player much more time.

The instance had no time limit, but Qin Fei set a seven-day limit for himself.

The longer he stayed in the instance, the slimmer his chances of clearing it.

Qin Fei returned home, closed all doors and windows, turned on his computer, with a map in his left hand and notes in his right.

The solution to any problem stems from the problem statement itself.

The method to end the instance could not be without reason.

There must be some hidden clues.

That he had overlooked.

The numbers on the bottom left corner of the computer screen kept changing, circles were drawn on the map, and pages of the notebook were flipped over.

Finally, Qin Fei's pen paused.

He found it.

The way to exit the instance.

This time, it must be correct.

The young man abruptly stood up, causing the chair beneath him to wobble violently and fall to the ground, while its owner rushed out of the room.

Qin Fei hailed a taxi, heading for an abandoned building in the southwestern suburbs of the city.

To find the method to clear the instance, Qin Fei reviewed his experiences leading up to entering this weird tale, tracing back from the Tulou instance to the first day of the Guild League.

The turning point appeared here.

Qin Fei recalled something crucial.

From start to finish, he and all other players in Hei Yu had been participating in the Guild League.

Since the instance continued, the Guild League should also be ongoing. Therefore, Qin Fei focused his attention on the "hotel."

The Weird Tales Hotel.

The venue of the Guild League.

After each instance, players had to return to the Weird Tales Hotel.

If the Guild League ended normally, it should have concluded at the hotel.

Qin Fei searched online for all hotels in the city and compared them with satellite map images.

He quickly ruled out the well-known hotels and focused on an abandoned building.

That abandoned building was well-known in the real world because the contractor had gone bankrupt, leading to a lack of funds and thus leaving it as nothing more than an empty shell with just its framework.

According to the original plan, once completed, this building was supposed to become a high-end resort hotel.

The reason Qin Fei noticed it was that he couldn't find any photos of it online; there were only a few short, uninformative snippets of information.

This was strange.

As a well-known abandoned project, Qin Fei could confirm that he had seen news about it more than once.

If it was like this in reality, it should naturally be the same in the replica world.

The discrepancy clearly indicated a significant problem.

The taxi sped down the road while Qin Fei silently gazed out the window. The trees blurred into a vague shadow as they rushed past.

"Why go to a place like that?" the driver chatted from the front seat. "Isn't that area just an empty lot? What are you going there for?"

Qin Fei replied casually, "Camping."

Driver: "?"

Going camping without any gear—these young people really are hard to understand.

The car soon arrived at the destination. The driver watched as Qin Fei got out and stared blankly at the towering concrete skeleton nearby.

When did this place get a building?

...

Qin Fei quickly entered the abandoned building.

He suppressed his urge to run, but his walking speed was faster than a jog.

The half-finished hotel looked nothing like the Weird Tales Hotel, and Qin Fei almost couldn't find where the entrance was. However, the moment he stepped inside, he realized:

He had found the right place.

The sky darkened, and the ground beneath his feet began to tremble.

The entire world seemed like a painting that had been erased and then redrawn; everything was changing.

When the surroundings finally settled, Qin Fei lifted his gaze and found himself no longer in the same place.

Walls surrounded him, curtains hung down, obscuring the view outside.

But this wasn't Qin Fei's bedroom.

It was his guest room in the Weird Tales Hotel.

"Beep—beep beep beep beep—"

A sharp, piercing alarm echoed through the air.

Qin Fei pushed open the door and rushed into the corridor.

The corridor was empty, and all the doors on both sides were tightly shut.

The entire hotel was shaking as if experiencing a massive earthquake, and bits of debris were falling from the ceiling above.

The alarm grew even more shrill and urgent.

Without hesitation, Qin Fei kicked open a nearby door.

This room was supposed to be the source of contamination; he had moved in here after the first Guild instance ended. But now, it was empty.

Qin Fei frowned.

The black crystal ring on his finger slightly warmed, as if comforting him and assuring him.

Qin Fei let out a soft breath.

There was no time left, so he kicked open another door across the corridor.

It was Mi Yang's room. Inside, Mi Yang was sleeping soundly with his eyes closed.

Qin Fei approached and shook him. "Wake up!"

No response—the player on the bed remained motionless.

Qin Fei gritted his teeth, raised his hand, and slapped the other person sharply.

"What the hell! Who hit me?!" Mi Yang jumped up.

He covered his face and, upon seeing Qin Fei, gave him an accusing look. "Why did you hit me?"

Qin Fei spoke succinctly, "Hurry up, the Weird Tales Hotel is collapsing."

"???"

Mi Yang was stunned. "What's going on? Did we clear the ultimate Guild dungeon, so the Guild competition ended?"

Is such a catastrophic end really reasonable?

Qin Fei pulled Mi Yang along as they ran out. "It's not the Guild competition; the entire rule-based world is collapsing."

The reason the Weird Tales Hotel was breaking apart was that the system could no longer sustain the normal operation of the replica world.

Qin Fei had just verified this by opening the chat interface and seeing things he shouldn't have seen.

"How did the screen suddenly go black?"

"It seems like all the instances are having problems."

"Am I going crazy, or is the system going crazy? Why did I see monsters from other instances in this new instance??"

These comments were enough to show that the entire Rule World had fallen into chaos.

Qin Fei began to feel relieved.

Fortunately, he had exited the memory instance quickly enough. If he had woken up any later, he would have been buried under the hotel's ruins.

"Split up and call the people from Black Feather first." Mi Yang reacted quickly and immediately organized his thoughts.

He didn't ask any pointless questions like "What happened to the Rule World?" Qin Fei also released the ghost infants, and they went together to knock on the guest room doors.

There were only ten players from Black Feather, all on the same floor. Perhaps because the system's power was weakening, it didn't take much effort to wake everyone else up.

The shaking of the hotel stairs also woke some players, and more and more doors were being pushed open.

Familiar or unfamiliar, players and NPCs alike started running out.

"The elevators aren't working." Before reaching the end of the corridor, Lu Cheng brought the news, "Use the emergency exit."

The shaking was so intense that many players abandoned the elevators, and the emergency exit was already crowded with people.

Despite this, the players descended the stairs quickly without any congestion.

Everyone exerted their full strength, rushing downward with heads down.

The stairwell was pitch-black, filled with the sound of footsteps.

"Xiao Qin!" Mi Yang spoke through the communication device, "What do you mean by saying the Rule World is collapsing?"

This statement startled everyone in the guild.

In the dark stairwell, several gazes converged on Qin Fei, making him feel as if he were under a spotlight, every breath and blink under everyone's concerned gaze.

Qin Fei briefly explained the cause and effect.

"..."

The communication device fell silent for a moment, then erupted into unprecedented noise a few seconds later.

The commotion seemed far beyond what ten people could produce.

Qin Fei raised his hand to cover his ears.

As they spoke, everyone had run from the 13th floor to the 2nd floor.

They were about to reach the ground floor.

Cen San Ya looked back at the length of the line behind them and calculated the players' steps: "At this speed..."

A piece of the ceiling fell, crashing to the ground with a loud bang.

Cen San Ya paused for a moment before continuing: "We should be able to rush out of the hotel before it completely collapses."

Freedom had never felt so close.

No one responded because everyone was talking non-stop. The information Qin Fei provided was too explosive. Everyone was fleeing for their lives and couldn't express their emotions through actions, so they could only talk.

"Is the instance really ending? All of them? We don't have to go through instances anymore?" Lu Cheng panted, "Thankfully you came to get me; otherwise, I might not have woken up."

Like Qin Fei, all the players had recently sunk into a tranquil world made of memories.

"I realized something was wrong on the second day after the instance started, but that world was too captivating."

It wasn't adorned with flowers and splendor; ordinary daily life was what truly wore down one's will.

"Where's Xiao Qin?" Lu Cheng randomly picked someone to chat with.

Qin Fei shook his head: "I didn't."

Lu Cheng: "Didn't?"

Qin Fei: "I was always looking for a way to leave the instance."

Lu Cheng was shocked: "Your willpower is truly remarkable."

It wasn't quite like that.

Having spent so many uncertain days in the Rule World, peaceful life, kind neighbors, and warm beds indeed seemed precious.

But it wasn't enough.

Qin Fei whispered: "Because I always felt someone was missing."

"Who's missing?"

But Qin Fei didn't answer.

They had already passed through the emergency exit door and reached the hotel's lobby on the first floor.

Light from outside shone through the open hotel doors, illuminating the red carpet in the center of the lobby.

The shadows of the players began to dissipate, and the hotel's structure also started to dissolve.

It wasn't cracking or collapsing, but rather dissolving into the air bit by bit, like pixels.

The alarm ceased, and Qin Fei halted in his tracks.

He looked at the person who had appeared before him.

Everything around them turned into a void of pure white, with only the door ahead and the single real person beside him.

"Let's go," said Wen Yian, with his black hair and black eyes, as he took Qin Fei's hand. His palm was dry and warm.

He whispered softly, "We're going home."

(End of Main Story)

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