Chapter 46

Chapter 46

Unlike his eldest brother, who loved starting businesses, or his third brother, who enjoyed exploring remote villages and wilderness, Su Juzi had only created two instances since gaining the ability to construct them.

One instance, rated SSS-class by the Weird Tales State Secrets Bureau, was titled "Horror Film Set." To this day, no player has qualified to enter an instance of this level.

Records exist in the Weird Tales State Secrets Bureau because a few years ago, a highly skilled registered player from the bureau completed his A-class instance in the same area and took the opportunity to explore the surrounding regions.

According to this player’s account, he merely brushed against the edge of what seemed to be a theater-like instance and immediately blacked out.

Fortunately, the theater’s owner did not seem interested in recruiting a low-level anomaly as a subordinate; otherwise, he would have been trapped in the anomalous world forever.

The fact that even a slight touch could lead to assimilation demonstrates its SSS-class rating is well-deserved.

As for the other instance, players know next to nothing about it.

Not only players, but even the various anomalies living in Tanzhong City have likely never heard of such a place.

It is a fully sealed instance.

There are no rules, no external anomalies or humans.

All it contains are the memories of the instance’s owner.

It is a world fragment.

The fragment’s predecessor was a world facing its end.

***

Regarding Jiang Lou’s desire to enter Ju Zi’s instance, Su Xuanxiao, seeing his resolve, asked Ju Zi for his opinion and, after careful consideration, decided not to stop him.

If this had happened just a few days after Jiang Lou learned of Xiao Xi’s identity, even if Su Xuanxiao had suggested Jiang Lou enter the instance, Ju Zi would have refused.

Now that Ju Zi no longer explicitly objected, it meant that, in his view, entering the instance would not push Jiang Lou’s already fragile mental state into complete madness.

“What exactly will Jiang Lou encounter this time?”

Before this, Su Xuanxiao only had a general idea that the core of Ju Zi’s instance was a fragment of the world where they were born.

Ju Zi rarely came home, often resting in that instance world instead.

Because the instance’s core was quite unique, there was a time dilation between the instance world and the anomalous world.

A few days in the outside world could equate to several years inside the instance.

As time passed, Ju Zi had placed many things in that instance, most of them related to memories.

Su Xuanxiao initially thought that Jiang Lou’s entry into the instance would be like watching an immersive film experience at most. This was why he had suggested Jiang Lou spend a few days in the instance to calm down in the first place.

Su Xuanxiao did not think there was anything wrong with his lack of detailed knowledge about his brother’s instance.

Just as Ju Zi and Jiang Lou might not be able to name all the departments in his company.

After speaking, Su Juzi, who was holding a little yellow dog he had borrowed from the neighbor, replied, “Once he enters my instance, he will temporarily forget many things.”

“What do you mean?” Su Xuanxiao sensed something was wrong.

Su Juzi reached out and scratched the little yellow dog under its chin, its tail brushing against his arm.

Only when he felt his eldest brother’s dissatisfied gaze did he stop playing with the little yellow dog and explain in detail: “Eldest Brother, you’ve never been there, so you don’t know. My instance world is actually quite lively.”

There were all kinds of people, cities built from steel and industrial exhaust, upper hunters who indulged in pleasure, and fodder who wore shackles year-round.

Everyone’s life followed a rigid routine—waking up, eating, and sleeping at fixed times.

Then, when the clock struck midnight, it would all repeat.

Because Jiang Lou’s condition had always been unstable, Su Xuanxiao had focused more of his attention on this high-maintenance younger brother.

He never expected that his other brother would do something so insane right under his watch.

He understood Ju Zi’s meaning.

He had recreated that world of ruins and steel within the fragment.

He had trapped all the remaining souls in the fragment world.

He recreated their encounters over and over, making the entire instance world’s puppets dance for him.

Su Juzi corrected his eldest brother: “Not all souls. In that world fragment, many people are alive, but they have no souls.”

A human soul can be seen as the spirit that recognizes its own existence.

Those without souls live merely as animated, coded meat.

“Aside from me, Jiang Lou is the first outsider to enter the instance.”

Su Juzi looked directly into his eldest brother’s eyes and said softly, “He will take on the identity of District 13, Number 13252-243. With his arrival, my instance will become slightly more alive.”

District 13, Number 13252-243—this was Su Jianglou’s citizen identification number before he became Su Jianglou.

Su Juzi’s meaning was clear: it was not an immersive film experience, nor was it about reviewing memories.

Upon entering the instance, Su Jianglou would temporarily lose all his memories and retrace the path from District 13, Number 13252-243 to Su Jianglou, and then to becoming an anomaly.

Including himself, when facing Xiao Xi, the reason he could suppress the anomalous negative emotions and remain stable without any flaws was not because he had repeatedly watched his memories in his instance world to convince himself that Xiao Xi had not been gone for long.

Rather, in that fragment world, they had already met countless times.

In those countless encounters, he had divided himself in two.

Half was himself, and the other half was the Xiao Xi from his memories.

After fully understanding how this instance world functioned, Su Xuanxiao fell silent for a while, then massaged his temples and said, “No wonder you said before that sending Jiang Lou into the instance would drive him insane.”

“What about now? Are you sure he’ll be fine?”

Su Juzi replied nonchalantly, “There will be some problems, but nothing serious.”

If things really went wrong, Jiang Lou should be able to hold out until he could extract him.

He could be rescued?

As long as he could be rescued, it was fine.

Su Xuanxiao felt relieved and put Jiang Lou’s situation out of his mind. He then reached out to the person across from him and said, “Give me the soup. Xiao Xi should be waking up any minute now.”

Su Juzi nodded and handed over the soup he had prepared.

Xiao Xi has gained a total of nearly six pounds from last month to this month. This nutritious broth has also contributed significantly.

After handing over the soup, Su Juzi suddenly closed his eyes. After about two seconds, he opened them: "Jiang Lou has entered."

Having asked most of the necessary questions earlier, Su Xuanxiao only nodded this time before turning and walking toward the illuminated mansion.

But before he had gone more than a few meters, he heard Ju Zi's voice behind him for the first time, urgent and sharp.

"Idiot! What did he do before entering the instance?!"

"He took Xiao Xi in with him!"

"A medium! Before entering the instance, he carried a medium belonging to Xiao Xi!"

Su Xuanxiao halted his steps. Before his body could move, his head had already turned 180 degrees: "Bring him out."

"No." Su Juzi thought carefully for a moment before refusing.

His instance had never had anyone enter before. He hadn't practiced the operation of extracting someone from the instance ahead of time.

It might harm Xiao Xi.

Moreover, perhaps driven by his own fixation, he could feel that the moment Xiao Xi entered the instance world, the entire world had "come alive" again.

If the period from Xiao Xi's appearance in their world to the time their world was devoured by the supernatural realm is taken as one cycle, he was certain that after the instance cycle ended, he could safely bring Xiao Xi out.

At this moment, Su Juzi couldn't help but feel grateful, grateful that when Xiao Xi first appeared in their world, he was already in a form close to that of a low-level supernatural entity.

He had not been harmed in that dark world.

Hearing that Xiao Xi wouldn't be harmed by the instance, Su Xuanxiao adjusted his neck with a crack.

He casually took off the glasses perched on the bridge of his nose, revealing a frenzied demeanor, and almost without thinking said, "Let me in."

At this moment, he cast the Su Financial Group to the back of his mind and forgot about his commercial ventures.

His only desire was to become 13th District, 13252-241 once more.

Su Juzi smiled at his eldest brother: "Wait for me, let's go together."

Since they couldn't bring Xiao out immediately, they would go and join him.

He just needed a little more time to allocate some power for emergencies, in case something went wrong with the instance.

During the interval of dispersing his power, Su Juzi began to recall his first meeting with Xiao Xi, a very, very long time ago.

He remembered clearly what the scene was like...

***

Instance: "The Wasteland World"

Level: Unknown

Instance Supernatural Entity: Su Juzi

Half an hour later, with the addition of the last two spectral participants, the instance officially began operation.

***

At the very center of the world stood a towering smokestack.

Exhaust fumes laden with toxic chemicals billowed from the chimney, spreading to every corner of the world.

In this world, the ruling elite class partitioned the world into 19 districts.

Districts 1 to 19, none had any particularly obvious differences; the basis for division was simply the number of urban residents in each district.

District 1 had the most residents, District 19 the fewest.

According to census data, District 13's population ranked in the lower-mid tier.

Because the population was moderate, there were relatively few distribution pipes constructed in the city.

But this population census data was already decades old.

There were a total of 50 distribution pipes in District 13. Years prior, 15 of them had gradually broken down.

In front of the remaining 35 distribution pipes, throngs queued from day to night.

13252-241 was pushed along by the crowd. After standing in line for two days, he finally reached the front.

At the same time, his two younger brothers, 13252-242 and 13252-243, were also pulled forward to the front.

13252-241, 13252-242, 13252-243—they were supposed to be brothers.

Just as humans raise livestock, they always prefer to keep communal creatures in familial groups.

13252-241, 13252-242, and 13252-243 were chained together: 241's left wrist was locked to 242's right wrist, and 242's left wrist was locked to 243's right wrist.

Several years earlier, the eldest brother, 241, also had a chain on his right wrist, the other end attached to a man and a woman.

Their parents.

But they had been dead for a long time.

In the beginning, the two cumbersome bodies greatly inconvenienced the movements of the remaining siblings.

The three children on the other end of the chain remained impassive. They simply did what they needed to do each day, like all the other residents of the city.

Until the two bodies began to decompose, revealing ghostly white bones, and finally the white hand bones slipped out of the circular handcuffs.

Perhaps due to the exhaust fumes permeating the city, from the onset of decay to the final state of skeletonization, there were no bothersome insects or larvae to disturb the process.

At the front of the distribution pipe, the supervising city administrator prevented loitering. After watching them eat until partially satisfied, he would gesture impatiently to usher out the crowd, making them leave the spot.

Throughout, he only needed to move his hand; not even a word was necessary.

These residents would docilely move on.

The three well-fed brothers returned to their dwelling.

It was a row of corrugated metal shacks. Theirs was toward the perimeter, house number 423.

Reaching out to push open the door, everything inside the sheet-metal room was visible at a glance—it was bare-bones, without even a bed.

Having eaten their fill, it was time to sleep.

According to the innate rhythm ingrained since childhood due to regulations, they would need to wait another two days before they could queue at the distribution pipe again.

The three lay down side by side and closed their eyes.

In the corner of the corrugated metal shack, a teary-eyed little boy crouched, looking no older than five at most.

He was dressed in pale yellow overalls, and, confused by the situation, he was trying hard not to cry, his delicate face turning red from the strain.

Finally, seeing the three unfamiliar older boys who had left in the morning and now returned, completely ignoring him, the little boy could hold back no longer. He burst into sobs.

A young child's mind couldn't ponder too many things; he was scared, mainly afraid that his parents would be angry because he had been away for so long.

His parents had been arguing for a long time, and Grandma was always unhappy too. He had to be good and not make his parents angry.

After crying for a while and seeing that no one paid him any attention, the little one mustered up his courage, stood up, ran over, and gently pushed 241, who was already lying down: "Brother, I... *sob*... I can't find my way home."

"Brother, you, hic, can you help me, p-please?"

He reached out to push but found that his hand couldn't quite make contact, passing right through instead.

He only felt the slightest sensation when he desperately wanted to touch something.

The weather was very hot today, and as the little one pushed and waved his hands, it was as if he were fanning the air with them.

The coolness from being "pushed" made 241 feel even more deeply asleep.