Chapter 66 Can’t Get Out of 1601 (2) So Many Corpses…

Chapter 66: The Inescapable 1601 (Part 2) So Many Corpses...

Yu Xing stared intently at the door for a moment, then, as if struck by an idea, she strode out of the guest bedroom and headed toward the living room.

"Hey!" Wang Kunyu jumped, scrambling to follow her.

The living room was almost completely dark. Wang Kunyu could only hear Bull Warrior's footsteps ahead. As he followed the sound, he fumbled for his device to turn on the light.

*Snap!*

Before he could activate the light, a blinding flash nearly seared his eyes.

Wang Kunyu quickly shut his eyes, realizing Bull Warrior had flipped the switch. He shielded his face with one hand and peeked through a slit with his right eye. Sure enough, Bull Warrior stood by the switch, her hand still resting on it.

"Did you find something?" Wang Kunyu asked, scanning the room. The living room looked exactly the same—unchanged, with no trace of the earlier footsteps. The space was completely deserted—no child, not even a mouse.

If not for the cool, aloof persona Yu Xing was currently maintaining, she would have given Wang Kunyu a good dressing down for his obliviousness.

Suppressing the urge, she raised a finger and pointed at apartment 1601's entrance.

Wang Kunyu turned to look, first confused, then his eyes widened in horror as cold sweat trickled down his spine.

"Where are the chairs?" His heart raced uncontrollably. He distinctly remembered placing two chairs against the door to prevent it from closing automatically.

He turned to the dining table—six chairs were neatly arranged around it, not one more, not one less.

"Who moved the chairs back?" Wang Kunyu's voice caught as he stared at Bull Warrior. "Did someone come in while we were in the room?"

He couldn't imagine any other way the chairs could have returned to their original positions.

Yu Xing pondered for a moment before walking to the door and trying to open it. To her surprise, it opened easily, without any resistance.

*Click!* The handle turned, and as Yu Xing pushed the door open, the familiar hallway appeared before them—white walls, dark floor tiles, and the dim lighting of the corridor.

She stepped outside. Everything looked normal. Waving at Wang Kunyu inside, she said, "Come out."

Not that he needed prompting—Wang Kunyu was already desperate to stay close to Bull Warrior, his only safe haven in this chaos.

They re-entered the elevator, which zoomed down to the first floor. Without a word, they stepped out and left Building 73.

Standing outside, they both felt a sense of unreality. Had they really escaped just like that?

Weren’t people who entered 1601 either oblivious or disappeared completely? How had they noticed the anomalies and still made it out?

"That scared me to death," Wang Kunyu finally gasped, taking deep breaths. "I thought we were trapped."

Yu Xing remained silent, staring up at the building for a long time.

Wang Kunyu was used to Bull Warrior’s golden silence and didn’t expect a response. He turned to ask what they should do next—whether to continue—only to find her still staring up.

"What are you looking at?" he asked curiously.

"The lights," Yu Xing replied, still looking up. "We didn’t turn them off when we left."

Wang Kunyu’s eyes narrowed. Right—the lights!

From the moment they entered 1601, they hadn’t turned off a single light. Every room, including the living room, was illuminated, and the curtains were open. From the ground, they should have seen 1601’s lights on.

But now, the entire building was pitch black, like a mausoleum.

"That thing is still up there," Yu Xing said. "We have to find it."

Wang Kunyu clenched his fists. Honestly, he never wanted to return to 1601. He’d rather fight hair at Sister Xiu's barbershop than step foot in that eerie place again. Even though they’d seen nothing, his goosebumps kept rising.

"Maybe…" he hesitantly offered, "we should leave first? Come back when we figure out how to deal with whatever’s up there?"

Yu Xing had considered the same. She’d been terrified earlier too, her composure an act. But her later discovery changed her mind. At Wang Kunyu’s suggestion, she gave a humorless smile.

Wang Kunyu blinked. Was Bull Warrior mocking his cowardice?

"You probably can’t leave," she said.

"...Huh?" Panic shot through him. Was she forbidding him from leaving?

"G-Great… senior," Wang Kunyu stammered, edging away. "Wh-Why not?"

Yu Xing turned and pointed behind them. "What’s missing there?"

Wang Kunyu looked but saw nothing—yet something felt terribly off. Something *was* missing, but what?

What could be missing from the residential pathways?

Then it hit him like a lightning strike. "The caution tape! Where’s the caution tape?!"

When they’d arrived earlier, Building 73 had been surrounded by caution tape. He’d considered stepping over it but followed Bull Warrior’s lead and crawled under it instead.

"Where’s the tape?" Wang Kunyu panicked. "Who removed it?"

It likely wasn’t removed—they simply weren’t in the same place anymore.

Yu Xing hadn’t noticed at first either. The live comments had tipped her off.

[I suspect this is a sealed space. Charming One and her companion are trapped inside now.]

[Definitely seems like a sealed space—an almost exact copy of the outside world.]

[Now I get why so many disappear. They’re trapped in this sealed space.]

[Question: If everyone’s trapped, why hasn’t Charming One met them yet?]

[Good question. Next person to answer.]

[Isn’t it obvious? There’s a ghost in the sealed space—it got them all!]

[It's in the building! Inside 1601!]

[Why am I so scared… I’m just an Alpha from a world of science…]

[Charming One, don't be afraid! Go kill that ghost!]

Wang Kunyu was still too panicked to think straight. Yu Xing finally explained. "I think we’re no longer in our original world. This is probably a..."

This world didn’t have the term "sealed space," so she struggled to put it.

"...probably a separate dimension of some kind," she said. "It looks just like our world, but it’s not the same. Those who disappeared got pulled into this place and couldn’t return. Understand?"

As a trendy young man, Wang Kunyu certainly understood what this meant. He calmed down slightly and asked, "So the others also entered this... other dimension? But why haven't we found any trace of them?"

"There might be a monster upstairs," Yu Xing pointed toward the upper floors. "It must've eaten them all."

"..." Wang Kunyu's legs went weak again.

Yu Xing analyzed the situation for a while downstairs. She believed the key to everything lay in 1601. Since they had entered this apparent barrier in 1601, the way out must also be through 1601.

"Let's go," Yu Xing said to Wang Kunyu. "Let's go up."

"Huh?" Wang Kunyu was genuinely terrified.

No matter how scary the contaminated monsters he had encountered before, he had never been this scared. It was the unseen things that truly frightened him.

"No..." Wang Kunyu resisted with every fiber of his being. "Can we wait a little longer?"

Just until he could pull himself together.

But before he could continue, Bull Warrior had already strode forward and quickly entered Building 73.

Yu Xing entered the elevator alone. As it ascended, she thought. Though she was a little scared, she wasn’t overly frightened. She knew what existed here was a source of corruption, not a ghost.

Xiao Li had once said that sources of corruption were a combination of energy and psychic energy. Moreover, their goal was to corrupt more people, so she had to remain calm. They'd taught at church that the more panicked one became, the faster their sanity would decline, making them more susceptible to corruption.

As she thought, the elevator stopped—the 16th floor had arrived again.

"Ping!"

With a crisp sound, the elevator doors slowly opened before her.

The moment the doors opened, Yu Xing frowned. She saw a trail of bloody footprints—something that hadn’t been there before.

From the entrance of 1601 to the elevator, a clear trail of bloody footprints stretched across the floor.

There was definitely something in 1601!

Yu Xing tightened her grip on the staff and quickly walked to the door of 1601. It was closed, but she quickly forced it open. This time, she not only smelled the stench but also a thick, coppery smell of blood.

When the lights turned on, the sight before her sent the stream chat into a frenzy.

[Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!]

[WTF! WTF! WTF!]

[What is this?!]

[When did this appear?!]

[Jesus, I feel sick...]

[Be careful, Yu Xing!]

[Could it be the corruption’s illusion?]

[I’m starting to get scared...]

Yu Xing stood at the doorway without entering. Under the light, the white floor of the living room was pooled with blood. In the pool of blood lay two twisted corpses, both wearing dresses—one an adult, the other a child.

The two corpses were clutched together, limbs contorted, their clothes soaked in blood that had spilled onto the floor.

Yu Xing’s throat tightened. She felt sick to her stomach.

If she wasn’t mistaken, these two bodies—one large, one small—were the female homeowner and her child. They had been dead for a long time, but their bodies had been taken into the barrier, which was why the police had found nothing.

But Yu Xing was still puzzled. If both mother and child were here, where was the father?

Also, this family had died five years ago. Why were the corpses so fresh? The blood on the floor was even still flowing.

"Ping!" Suddenly, the sound of the elevator echoed behind her.

Yu Xing’s eyes widened slightly as she gripped her magic staff and spun around. However, she quickly recognized the newcomer—it was Wang Kunyu, who now looked rather a mess.

"What happened?" Yu Xing asked.

Wang Kunyu was gasping for air, visibly relaxing the moment he saw Yu Xing. Slumping against the wall, he said, "There’s someone here. Someone just attacked me."

"Attacked you?" Yu Xing arched a brow.

Wang Kunyu began recounting what had happened downstairs. After Bull Warrior left, he had still been hesitating. Just as he decided to go upstairs to find Bull Warrior, rapid footsteps suddenly approached from behind.

He turned around just in time to see a man lunging at him with a knife.

Caught off guard, he just barely dodged, but the knife still nicked his shoulder. Fortunately, he had enough strength to fend off the man. The wound on his shoulder was minor, not serious.

As he spoke, Wang Kunyu showed his shoulder—his clothes were torn, and blood seeped from the cut.

He pushed the man away and was about to subdue him when the man suddenly jumped up, screaming as he fled.

"What did he scream?" Yu Xing asked.

Wang Kunyu winced as he pressed a hand to his shoulder. "He was yelling something like... 'It’s back'? What’s coming back?"

"He ran too fast for me to chase, and it felt too creepy, so I hurried upstairs," Wang Kunyu said.

Yu Xing thought for a moment. "Have you ever seen that man before?"

"How could I have?" Wang Kunyu said. "I... actually, he did look a bit familiar, but I..."

"Was it the man from 1601?" Yu Xing asked.

Wang Kunyu’s eyes widened in realization. "Damn! It was him!"

"Moon God, why is he here?" Wang Kunyu couldn't believe it. "He’s been missing for five years. How is he still alive?"

Yu Xing didn’t answer. She stepped aside, allowing Wang Kunyu to see inside the room.

Wang Kunyu got one look and went pale. "Damn..."

The two stepped into the living room of 1601 again. Crouching beside the corpses, Yu Xing asked, "Do you know how to do an autopsy?"

"How would I?" Wang Kunyu found the question absurd, but then he realized he hadn’t been much use so far. He couldn’t let Bull Warrior think less of him—he had to contribute somehow.

So he forced himself to begin inspecting the bodies. Though he didn’t know how to perform an autopsy, he could still observe some obvious things.

"Arms and legs are broken—I can tell that much. They were beaten. There are so many knife wounds. What kind of monster, not even sparing the child..." Wang Kunyu shuddered as he spoke.

The eyes of both mother and child were wide open, frozen in a death stare, making his skin crawl.

Confirming that the two were definitely dead, Yu Xing stood up. This time, she moved to inspect the kitchen. It was mostly clean and tidy—except for one knife missing from the rack.

She checked the bathroom again, and everything appeared normal there as well. Then she reopened the door to the master bedroom, and this time she finally understood why the night view outside the window had seemed off earlier.

Ever since the incident at Building 73, the HOA had shut off the streetlights around it to prevent people from accidentally wandering there at night. When she first entered the neighborhood, the further she walked toward this area, the darker it became. Yet when she looked out the window, the streetlights below were lit, no different from the rest of the neighborhood.

As she thought this, Yu Xing glanced to her right—a photo frame on the nightstand showed a family of three grinning widely.

Her frown deepened. She distinctly remembered throwing the frame on the bed earlier, so how had it returned to the nightstand?

Noticing her confusion, Wang Kunyu asked, "What's wrong?"

"I remember throwing this photo frame away earlier," Yu Xing said.

"That tracks," Wang Kunyu replied. "Didn’t you say this is some kind of pocket dimension? You threw the frame away in the original world, but here in this dimension, it never happened. Just like the chair by the door."

"No, this is different," Yu Xing shook her head.

Wang Kunyu blinked. "How?"

Yu Xing pointed out the window and explained the changes she had noticed. Then she said, "If the previous world was the original reality, then what we saw outside the window should have matched reality. But the view was already different earlier, meaning we were already inside a pocket dimension at that point."

"So this photo frame…" Wang Kunyu’s blood ran cold as he realized, "Are you saying we might be… inside a pocket dimension within a pocket dimension?"

[Not necessarily. Remember, when they left 1601 earlier, the living room was clean. When they returned, the bodies were there.]

[And those footsteps outside the door…]

[They might already be trapped in a pocket dimension within a pocket dimension within a pocket dimension within a pocket dimension.]

[Enough with the Russian dolls!]

[The problem is, they could be buried who-knows-how-many layers deep, and they haven’t even seen a single ghost yet!]

[I’m freaking out here… Is the heartthrob going to die again?]

"What do we do?" Wang Kunyu was too frightened to think straight. He looked to Yu Xing desperately. "Just tell me what to do—I’m with you."

"Calm down." Yu Xing had zero patience for nervous wrecks like him. That ABO fangirl was always pushing her to take Wang Kunyu under her wing, but she refused—she didn’t like this type.

"Get a grip." She suppressed her irritation. "This whole messed-up situation is caused by the source of corruption. As long as we find and eliminate it, the crisis will resolve itself."

Yu Xing scanned the room. Where could the source be?

In her past encounters, the corruption source was always tied to a person. Could it be the man who stabbed Wang Kunyu earlier?

Just as she pondered this, a scream tore through the air from outside.

"AHHH!!!"

Yu Xing and Wang Kunyu reacted instantly, rushing out of the room—only for the scream to be cut short.

Not only that, the living room was swallowed by darkness again.

Wang Kunyu quickly activated his terminal’s flashlight, illuminating the scene before them.

The mother and daughter’s bodies in the center of the living room had vanished. Now a man’s body lay there instead.

At first, Yu Xing wondered if it was the corpse of 1601’s male resident. But upon closer inspection, the body was taller and more robust.

It was a severely decomposed corpse, flesh sloughing off in places to expose bone. Fortunately, both of them were wearing masks, or the stench would’ve had them puking.

Yu Xing realized the rotting smell must have been coming from this body all along.

Wang Kunyu gagged as he knelt to inspect it. The corpse belonged to a tall man with a buzz cut. After some searching, he pulled an ID from the corpse’s pocket and turned to Yu Xing. "This guy’s Divine Chosen."

The ID identified the man as Zhu Li, a Plant God’s Beloved.

He must have been one of the official Divine Chosen who entered this place earlier. No clue why he’d ended up dead here.

"Cause of death?" Yu Xing asked.

Wang Kunyu struggled through the examination before answering, "Knife to the heart."

Another knife kill? Was the corruption source really 1601’s male resident?

"I can’t take it anymore! I can’t take it anymore!" A raw, panicked scream suddenly came from the room behind them.

*Click!*

The door swung open. Yu Xing and Wang Kunyu turned simultaneously to see light spilling from the master bedroom as a man came barreling out.

Spotting the two of them, he shrieked, "Who are you?! The hell are you doing in my place?!"

Before they could react, the man lunged at them. "I’ll kill you!!"

Yu Xing sidestepped, brushing her hand against the man as he passed. Missing his target, she snapped at Wang Kunyu, "Grab him!"

Whether out of fear or desperation, the man scrambled up from the floor and hauled ass out the door.

Yu Xing and Wang Kunyu gave chase but were a step too late—the elevator doors had already closed.

"Go! Take the stairs!" Wang Kunyu turned and sprinted, disappearing down the stairwell.

Yu Xing didn’t have time to stop him. She gritted her teeth as she whipped out her broomstick and flew out the window.

The guy moved like a damn cheetah. By the time Yu Xing reached the ground, she spotted him booking it toward the neighborhood gates. She gave chase, but as she nearing the entrance, he disappeared.

"Where’d he go?" Yu Xing dismissed her broom.

"I’ll kill you!" A furious shout came from behind.

Yu Xing reacted instantly, ducked and rolled. The man with the knife missed his strike, and in that moment, Yu Xing confirmed it was indeed 1601’s male resident.

Throwing up a spell circle, she coolly incanted, "Avada Kendagua!"

A lightning bolt lanced down. The man didn’t even have time to scream before he was reduced to a smoldering husk.

After killing him, Yu Xing stared at the corpse. Now where’s that damn corruption source?

"I’ll kill you!"

That same enraged yell rang out behind her again. Yu Xing’s eyes widened. This time, she couldn’t react fast enough—something heavy blindsided her, white-hot pain exploding between her shoulders.

Yu Xing hit the pavement hard. Behind her stood the familiar figure of 1601’s male resident, a butcher’s knife glinting in his grip.

*How?!* The stench of his charred corpse still hung in the air. *I literally just fried this guy—how?!*

While Yu Xing was still processing, a fireball screamed past her ear, engulfing the attacker in flames.

"Ahhh!!!" The male owner of 1601 suddenly erupted in flames, thrashing in agony.

Yu Xing quickly picked herself up as Wang Kunyu asked worriedly, "Are you okay?"

The burning figure gradually stopped struggling and slowly collapsed to the ground, collapsing into a smoldering heap.

"What is this?" Wang Kunyu stared at the charred corpse at Yu Xing's feet.

Since both bodies were there, it meant there had indeed been two identical 1601 male owners attacking Yu Xing moments ago.

How could this be? Not only were there identical spaces, but now identical people too.

Yu Xing felt her mind was reeling when Wang Kunyu squinted ahead and said, "There seems to be something over there."

Before them lay vegetation - a strain cultivated in the New Era. Not particularly beautiful, but resistant to mutation.

Wang Kunyu pushed aside the plants and went completely rigid.

Noticing his strange reaction, Yu Xing moved closer to look. Behind the foliage lay over a dozen corpses scattered haphazardly. Their deaths looked different - all of them horrifying - but every single body was unmistakably the same person - the male owner of 1601.