Chapter 31 We Still Have a Dead End

Chapter 31: Our Only Way Out Is Death

"Who is Pei Shuo?"

"Why are they asking that?!"

For a moment, Lin Jianyuan felt a profound sense of unreality. He gazed blankly around him: familiar colleagues, the familiar office, the familiar vines creeping across walls and ceiling, and the incessantly chattering squeeze toy and small stone in his pocket.

Everything was as he knew it.

But something was wrong. Something had been amiss for a long time.

Those vines growing from people's eyes, the talking squeeze toy and stone—none of it was normal.

No. Wrong. These things shouldn't exist.

These were all hallucinations!

...So was Pei Shuo also a hallucination?

That warm, cheerful young man, the Golden Retriever with sparkling eyes who could never bear to see people suffer. The one who brought him breakfast every day.

If Pei Shuo was also a hallucination, then what were those breakfasts he'd been eating?

"Lin Jianyuan? Lin Jianyuan!"

Suddenly, Lin Jianyuan felt intensely dizzy and nauseous. He could barely make out what the people around him were saying. Fighting back the urge to vomit, he pushed through the crowd.

A sharp reprimand blocked his path.

"Lin Jianyuan! Where are you going during work hours?!"

Yu Xiuli's eyes blazed, her gaze behind black-framed glasses utterly severe.

Too annoyed to explain, Lin Jianyuan chose the simplest method.

"Ugh—ugh ugh ugh!"

Lin Jianyuan opened his mouth and vomited violently. A sticky, brown fountain immediately splattered all over Yu Xiuli's face and clothes!

Yu Xiuli: "?"

Everyone: "???"

Good heavens, last time he just pulled out poop from his pocket, but this time he actually had poop in his mouth?!

For a moment, everyone's faces contorted in extreme horror.

But the next second, they realized: Wait. That wasn't poop!

It was just undigested soda crackers…

So it was just vomit after all.

No big deal then.

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Of course, "everyone" here did not include Yu Xiuli.

Because she was the one who had actually been vomited on!

Not to mention the sticky vomit still trickling down her face and collar, but the smell alone! That sour, warm, pungent odor!

Ugh!

Ugh ugh ugh!

Yu Xiuli also broke down, retching dry heaves!

Compared to Yu Xiuli's immediate meltdown, Lin Jianyuan was much calmer.

He casually grabbed a tissue from Qin Shi's desk, wiped his mouth haphazardly, and then headed out.

Everyone stared in stunned silence, finding the scene eerily familiar.

Another certified lunatic, another retching, broken leader…

How to put it.

In one word.

Satisfying!!!

After leaving the office, the nausea in Lin Jianyuan’s throat subsided, but his head still felt dizzy.

Could working so much have given him high blood pressure? That would definitely count as an occupational injury.

The thought of an occupational injury made Lin Jianyuan smirk, and he couldn't help but fantasize about the wonderful life of compensation plus sick leave.

His mind was still a bit muddled, unable to distinguish reality from illusion, making him wonder if he had even taken his medication properly these past few days.

Whatever, he’d go smoke a cigarette first to calm down.

Lin Jianyuan headed toward the elevator. Just then, an extremely distant, faint voice reached his ears.

“Bro Yuan!…”

Pei Shuo?!

Lin Jianyuan stopped in his tracks, then forcefully pushed open the fire escape door!

The voice had come from the fire escape.

Whether it was an illusion or not, he had to go see what was going on.

The fire escape was dark. Very, very dark. As if something had greedily devoured all the light.

Even the “EXIT” sign near the floor flickered intermittently. The little green running man, meant to provide a sense of safety, instead created a strong horror movie effect.

But the most terrifying thing was never the darkness itself, but the unknown hidden within it.

Lin Jianyuan stopped on one of the landings.

The voice that sounded like Pei Shuo’s cry for help did not reappear. Instead, it was replaced by indistinct, gurgling sounds, like something bubbling underwater.

Gurgle gurgle. Gurgle gurgle gurgle gurgle.

"Don't go down any further..." the Squeeze Toy said uneasily. "I feel like something's wrong down there..."

"It is strange," Little Stone hesitated. "But what kind of presence is this?"

Lin Jianyuan felt his ears itching. The two stress-relieving toys in his pocket were frantically tugging at his sleeve, urging him not to go further, which also annoyed him.

What was that gurgling, bubbling sound? Where exactly was Pei Shuo?

Was what he was seeing, hearing, and experiencing right now reality or an illusion?

What the hell was going on with all of this?

—Was he going crazy, or was the world going crazy?!

The more Lin Jianyuan thought about it, the less sense it made, and the angrier he became.

Then, he heard an utterly exasperated voice coming from below the stairs.

"Seriously? You’ve barely eaten anything and you’re already full? Are you even cut out for this? With an appetite like that, how dare you even show up?"

Lin Jianyuan: "."

Squeeze Toy & Little Stone: "??"

Lin Jianyuan instantly breathed a sigh of relief.

He said to the two little toys in his pocket, "See? That bubbling sound wasn't a monster. It’s just someone who overate and has indigestion."

Squeeze Toy: "Wait, what? Hold on—"

The next moment, Lin Jianyuan spotted two strange things around the corner of the stairs.

To be precise, two strange shadows—the stairwell was very dark, with only the green exit sign providing a faint, horror-movie-like glow.

By that dim green light, Lin Jianyuan barely made out the two things in front of him:

On the left was a black... black trash bag? With shark teeth?

On the right was an eyeball the size of a basketball, with three pairs of wings spread out like an angel’s on either side.

Multiple pairs of eyes met.

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

Shark Teeth & Angel Eyeball: "??"

Squeeze Toy & Little Stone: "???"

Wait, why are the three of you making eye contact?!

The Squeeze Toy was the first to react. It struggled out of the pocket, dragging Little Stone with it as it lunged toward the opposite side.

At the same time, it let out a sharp, piercing scream: "Lin Jianyuan, run! That’s an A-class Abyssal Maw and—"

An Abyssal Maw and what?

Lin Jianyuan wanted to hear the Squeeze Toy finish the explanation, but Shark Teeth instantly appeared right in front of him.

At that moment, the distance was extremely close. Time seemed to stand still—he could almost make out the subtle wear and tear on the hundreds of densely packed shark teeth.

Then everything went black.

Lin Jianyuan vanished entirely into the deep, dim emergency stairway.

……

Lin Jianyuan felt woozy. When he felt his feet firmly on the ground again, he opened his eyes to see a massive... trash heap?

In the dark, deep cavern, all sorts of junk were piled into mountains: bound files, greasy sauce-filled pancake wrappers, dirty red stamps, and countless other random things.

...Wait. Files? Sauce pancakes?

Lin Jianyuan’s heart leaped, and he shouted into the pitch-black cavern, "Pei Shuo!"

"Pei Shuo, are you here? Pei Shuo!"

His calls echoed through the dark cave. Before long, a distant voice came from behind the trash mountain.

"Bro Yuan!!! I'm over here!!!"

Even from far away, the excitement in that voice was unmistakable. Lin Jianyuan hurried toward the source of the sound, and Pei Shuo also ran while shouting.

The two quickly located each other through their voices.

"Bro Yuan! It's really you!"

Pei Shuo was on the verge of tears when he found him, his puppy-dog eyes filled with both grievance and excitement. Lin Jianyuan could almost picture the Golden Retriever’s strong, powerful tail wagging wildly.

Lin Jianyuan: "What happened?"

Pei Shuo: "I don’t know either! This morning, I was just going to work as usual. Everything was fine when I got into the elevator, but when I stepped out, it was pitch black ahead. As soon as I walked into it, I ended up here..."

Lin Jianyuan: "Didn’t you feel like something was off?"

Pei Shuo scratched his head: "Not really. I thought the hallway had a power outage."

Lin Jianyuan was speechless for a moment. "You’re something else."

Pei Shuo: "Then how did you get here, bro?"

Lin Jianyuan: "Oh, there were two monsters chatting in the stairwell. I wasn’t paying attention and bumped right into them. One of them opened its mouth and swallowed me."

Pei Shuo: "..."

Who’s the one who’s really something else here?!

"Since we’re already here," Lin Jianyuan said, "let’s find a way out."

"Wait, bro," Pei Shuo said, looking stunned. "How are you so calm? Aren’t you scared at all?"

Lin Jianyuan: "I have a mental illness. I have hallucinations all the time—this is nothing. You know that, right?"

Pei Shuo: "."

Alright then.

Lin Jianyuan: "But this hallucination seems different from the ones before."

Pei Shuo immediately grew nervous: "How?"

Lin Jianyuan: "Why are you in my hallucination too?"

Pei Shuo: "Huh??"

Lin Jianyuan stepped forward and waved his hand in front of Pei Shuo’s face.

Pei Shuo: "?"

Pei Shuo’s eyes instinctively followed. Lin Jianyuan pointed east, Pei Shuo looked east. Lin Jianyuan pointed west, Pei Shuo looked west.

Lin Jianyuan poked his finger right at Pei Shuo’s nose, and Pei Shuo went cross-eyed.

Lin Jianyuan couldn’t hold back and burst out laughing.

The Golden Retriever only realized he was being teased when he heard the laughter and yelled in frustration, "Bro Yuan!"

Lin Jianyuan suddenly remembered something, pulled his hand back and muttered, "Wait, this doesn’t prove anything. Even if it feels like a person, it might not actually be one. After all, a frog feels like a frog, but sometimes a frog is really a satsuma. A squeeze toy does feel like a squeeze toy—wait, no, a squeeze toy really is a squeeze toy..."

To Pei Shuo, Lin Jianyuan’s muttering sounded like total nonsense.

The more Pei Shuo listened, the more horrified he became. With a worried look, he said, "Bro, stop talking, you’re scaring me!"

Lin Jianyuan: "?"

Pei Shuo wore a "please don’t lose it now" expression. Lin Jianyuan sighed helplessly and said, "Alright, let’s look around and figure out what this place is."

"Are we really going to walk around?" Pei Shuo hesitated. "Maybe we should just stay here and wait for help... I’m afraid we’ll get lost if we keep going. Actually, I was already lost before you showed up..."

Lin Jianyuan: "Don’t expect anyone else. No one is coming to save us."

Pei Shuo: "Why?"

Outside the Maw of the Abyss.

The moment the squeeze toy snail crashed into the Maw of the Abyss, three pairs of wings snapped open.

Beneath the angelic white feathers, a giant eye stared at it.

The squeeze toy was caught off guard, locking eyes with it. Its entire body instantly froze.

Plop.

The squeeze toy fell to the ground, its elastic body bouncing twice with a "DUANG DUANG."

"Huh? How did I get here?"

Time Thief scratched his head with his antenna, then dragged his heavy snail shell away, wiggling off.

A slimy, wet trail was left behind the snail.

Click clack click clack...

A small stone rolled down the steps.

It rolled all the way to the bottom floor of the building.

"No one is coming to save us," Lin Jianyuan said. "Because once we’re consumed, everyone forgets we ever existed. This Maw of the Abyss isn’t just about swallowing people alive—it devours the very existence of whatever it consumes."

"What? How do you know all this?" Pei Shuo’s eyes widened, his puppy-dog eyes full of shock and fear. "Wait. Am I dreaming? How is 'devouring existence' even possible in the real world? Have I been watching too much anime..."

Lin Jianyuan: "Because I made all this up."

Pei Shuo: "Huh???"

Pei Shuo grew more and more confused.

"Then how do you still remember me, Bro Yuan?" Pei Shuo asked, puzzled. "Didn’t you say you came looking for me because you heard me calling for help?"

Lin Jianyuan: "Oh, right. Just forget I said that. That rule doesn’t hold up. I guess I’m just not cut out for mystery and suspense."

Pei Shuo: "..."

"What do we do now?" Pei Shuo was about to cry. "I’m not good at mystery and suspense either! And I’m terrified of dark, enclosed spaces like this. Every time I play games like this, I have to turn down the scare level. What are we supposed to do now..."

Lin Jianyuan comforted him: "Don’t worry, it’s not like we’re out of options."

Pei Shuo’s eyes lit up: "Yeah?"

Lin Jianyuan: "We’ve still got certain death."

Pei Shuo: ".................."