The fork in his hand was put down, and Tang Ye raised his head again. The family of five, Bick, still maintained their previous posture and expressions of surprise, including Dairya.
Bick’s wife was holding a fork, but she unconsciously let go due to astonishnt. The fork had already drooped down, but eerily, it stayed suspended in mid-air near Bick’s wife’s hand, motionless. Even the fla on the candle, which should have flickered, remained still as if fixed in place without any visible movent.
"Okay..."
No need to ntion what had happened, Tang Ye casually tossed the fork down and leaned back against the chair, his tone carrying a hint of helplessness.
The scene had stopped, but the expected shattering and revealing of the endless darkness behind the image did not occur, and Tang Ye also realized that he could still move. Initially, Tang Ye, who had been earnestly waiting to return to the starting point, finally turned his gaze towards Dairya.
"What do you want to do?" Spontaneously, Tang Ye asked her this, and with that question, Tang Ye noticed a change in Dairya’s expression!
Her eyes began to move, then t Tang Ye’s gaze. The surprised look on her face gradually faded, all of which occurred very slowly as if a video was being played at half speed, actions becoming sluggish.
After a mont, the surprised expression on Dairya’s face completely disappeared, but soon, Tang Ye saw her lips start to rise into a smile. Shortly, a smile appeared before Tang Ye’s eyes, devoid of both friendliness and malice, resembling more of a mockery of Tang Ye!
After her laughter, the scene in front finally cracked. The cracks tore the scene into many pieces, like old wall paint ravaged by countless years, peeling off and disappearing into the darkness below.
A few seconds after everything turned into profound darkness, a streak of light appeared ahead, and Tang Ye opened his eyes, seeing the sun hanging in the west and graffiti-covered ruins not far from his right hand.
"Oh, snap!"
The freshly ’awakened’ Tang Ye made a playful sound, totally relaxed, he turned around and sat on a piece of Building Ruins, murmuring perhaps in self-mockery before swiftly falling into deep thought.
"Could it be that my orientation was wrong?"
He took out his phone and stared at the display on the lock screen that read 12:40, with thoughts unknown within him.
He had returned to the starting point twice already, both tis inside Dairya’s house, which might not be strange, but on further thought, both were at night. Coincidentally, he didn’t know the specific ti, and the curfew stipulated in the regulations began at 9:10. During so seasons, it gets dark later, and fatefully, he was a zombie. New humans hated the heat, and zombies weren’t bothered by the cold.
Wait... That sounds like no explanation at all?
In any case, a zombie doesn’t feel temperature.
Xiaojie emphasized in her letter to abide by the regulations strictly. Considering these clues, Tang Ye had reason to suspect his previous two instances of failing to clear the stage were due to violations of the regulations. Most importantly, the people here didn’t know the specific ti, nor were they aware of the existence of the regulations, but this didn’t prove their non-existence. Xiaojie had said that even if soone died from violating the regulations, they wouldn’t realize they had died once, so in Kimberlite City, whether the regulations existed or not didn’t matter to the people.
Both tis he returned to the original point were after seven soldiers forcibly entered Bick’s family ho, and it seed there was a pause right before going back to the original point. Calculating, it appeared to be the sa ti as the previous return to the original point.
Thinking this over, Tang Ye almost confird that his return to the original point occurred precisely at the starting ti of the curfew at 9:10!
"Let’s try it once then."
Tang Ye hesitated for a while, and finally, as if convinced of the answer, he nodded. This ti, he decided to do nothing, not to participate in any events, and just let the day pass to see what the result would be.
Standing up, Tang Ye found a secluded place, and from sowhere brought in a bed, lying down on it. He then leisurely started playing the ga Dairya used to play, called "Above a Hundred Floors if You’re a Man".
Ti passed, whether long or not, it was hard to tell, until finally, a low battery warning popped up on his phone, and shortly after, the phone ran out of power.
Putting down the phone, Tang Ye peered outside through the cracks in the wall beside him. By then, the sky had begun to dim. Looking at the ti displayed on his phone, it was 16:52, less than an hour until the 17:49 he had set earlier.
He sat on the edge of the bed, watching the city’s brightness fade with the passage of ti. In that mont, his heart felt ethereal; the city was too quiet, maintaining a silent ambiance so prolonged that one could feel as if everything was soundless. While the city should have been populated, when Tang Ye, an outsider, did not participate in it, the people inside seed like NPCs who had all frozen.
"What would you co up with?"
After a while, Tang Ye mumbled to himself, finally bringing a bit of sound to this world.
Then he glanced at his phone again, now it was just past five in the afternoon. Thinking it over, Tang Ye lay back down on the bed and closed his eyes, and at that mont, the world not only lost all its sound, but even everything visible turned into nothingness.
And this environnt was most suitable for a zombie to hibernate!
Right from the mont he lay down, Tang Ye fell into a half-awake, half-asleep state. In his senses, ti began to speed up, and he couldn’t tell whether it was an illusion or not, making it impossible to perceive how much ti had truly passed.
Though the environnt was very quiet, Tang Ye inexplicably felt surrounding noise, various sounds filling his mind, reminiscent of before the Apocalypse when he would sleep in a rented room and always sensed the noises from outside, car horns, passersby’s chatter, and the advertisents blared by peddlers on their carts as they passed by.
These noises were persistent, making it impossible for Tang Ye to fall asleep, but upon careful listening, he realized there was actually no noise at all, akin to tinnitus, and the city called Kimberlite remained as silent as ever.
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