A sleepless night.

The sound of waves could faintly be heard from outside the window and the air carried over by the sea breeze was moist. Ji Yushi had difficulty falling asleep.

Before the mission, his thoughts were disordered, and he also couldn’t control the various memories constantly surfacing to his mind. It wouldn’t be good if it continued like this. He must get back into good condition.

Ji Yushi got up from the bed and took his medicine. He didn’t know if the medicine in the illusion would have any effect on him but he did feel better.

By himself, it was difficult distracting himself.

So, without turning on the lights, he took out his black and white game console and played it for several hours by the window. He only managed to fall asleep in the early hours of the morning.

The dream was repetitive and filled with illogical scenes from his memories.

When Ji Yushi opened his eyes again, he had already returned to his capsule.

The violent shaking and bizarre displays on the transparent panel no longer surprised Ji Yushi.

When he heard the familiar, “Warning! Warning! You have deviated from the destination coordinates! You have deviated from the destination coordinates!”, he even felt a lot less dizzy and just quietly waited for the shaking to pass.

【Illegal transition detected!】

【Illegal transition detected!】

A few seconds later, the capsule quietened down. It meant that he had already arrived at his new destination.

The Tianqiong system didn’t even do its usual processes at face value. All the superfluous things had been stored away.

Ji Yushi undid the safety belts and, while receiving the nutrient solution given by the robotic arm, he looked at the transparent panel in front of him.

Please read this from kk translates

The string of garbled characters displayed on the screen had been replaced by the mission information from Tianqiong.

[Mission mode: Rubik’s Cube.]

[Mission rule: Death elimination.]

[Mission objective: Joining.]

It was already enough seeing this information once before.

Ji Yushi turned off the screen and then opened the door of his capsule and got out.

*

The light was blinding. Ji Yushi used his hand to block some of it from his eyes.

After he got used to the light, he finally saw where the blinding lights came from — What entered his eyes was a white expanse. It was like a field of untouched snow. It made it difficult for one to find a point to focus on.

Not far ahead was a red ball about the size of a baseball. It was only because of its existence that Ji Yushi was able to barely tell that this was a square room.

The ceiling, walls and floor were all pure white.

For some reason, there was a red ball floating in the centre of the room.

Ji Yushi looked back behind him. The capsule he had clearly just gotten out of just now was gone and replacing it was a snow-white wall.

Was this the mission destination?

At this moment, someone appeared beside him.

Like some kind of loading animation being played through holographic projection, black boots appeared from the snow-white wall, followed by a black combat uniform and then their face.

Li Chun stepped out with his left foot looking like he had just walked out of a capsule.

He asked, “Advisor Ji! Where is this?”

Ji Yushi shook his head, “I don’t know yet.”

As soon as he finished saying this, a round-faced teammate appeared. He was taken aback by the scene he saw, and he quickly looked back behind him.

Li Chun also did the same. He was horrified, “Holy shit. Where’s the capsule?!”

Just like Ji Yushi’s, their capsules had disappeared. Or to be more precise, the moment they opened the door of the capsule, they had already entered this place. It was like that time in Chaos when they stepped into the mirrored city.

“This is practically stepping into another world. Could this be another crevice or something? Why else would they ask us to join it?” Li Chun examined the room, “Death elimination? There’s nothing here so how could we be eliminated?”

The room was a little quiet. Li Chun turned back and smiled, “Le Le, don’t be afraid! There are no two tailed dogs this time!”

Ji Yushi had already examined the room. As he looked around, he corrected Li Chun without raising his head, “The one who entered was Tang Qi.”

Li Chun, “?”

Tang Qi has had enough. He complained unhappily, “You have already been in this squad for more than a year. How many times has it been now?”

“Fuck. With the uniform on the two of you are just copies of each other.” Li Chun defended himself, “I’m fucking not Advisor Ji who can tell the two of you apart despite looking exactly the same.”

What the twins hated the most was being mistaken as the other twin.

Tang Qi wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t Tang Le who would loudly voice his complaints, so he just kept silent.

For now, this room appeared to be safe, and with the three people around, no one panicked.

The most eye-catching object in this room at this moment was the red ball floating in the centre of the room.

Tang Qi walked over. He raised his hand to try touching it but was stopped by Ji Yushi, “Don’t move!”

Tang Qi immediately withdrew his hand, “Sorry.”

He was indeed being too reckless.

Li Chun on the other end asked, “Advisor Ji, could this be a killing mechanism?”

“Probably not.”

Ji Yushi had already examined that ball. It had a smooth surface and looked very much like an ordinary ball, but he would need to touch it to know more.

He continued, “The Tianqiong system has no reason to send us into a place like this to die and death elimination shouldn’t be this simple. I’m thinking that there must be a reason for this ball to be here.”

“What reason?”

Li Chun followed this train of thought and asked.

Ji Yushi answered him, “There is no way out here. We definitely have no way of completing the mission trapped here. If it was like this then the mission assigned to us by Tianqiong would be meaningless. My guess is, if it is a mechanism, it should be for activating or connecting something. Right now, not everyone is here so let’s not touch it. We can talk about it once we’re all gathered.”

Tang Qi agreed, “You’re right.”

Li Chun, “Sounds good. I almost touched it just now too. We could’ve accidentally separated.”

After briefly expressing his thoughts, Ji Yushi walked around the room again.

Based on his rough calculations. Each step of his was about fifty centimetres and it took ten steps for him to walk along one wall.

In that case, this room was five metres by five metres, a total of twenty-five square metres.

He looked up and visually estimated that the height of the room was about the same as the width. It should be a cube.

Rubik’s cube…..

Ji Yushi recalled the mission mode. Could this room be a part of the Rubik’s cube?

Everything was still unknown.

Ji Yushi raised his hand and checked his communicator. It had been more than five minutes since the three of them entered this room but no one else had come.

He was a little anxious.

After Ji Yushi finished saying that, Tang Qi tried to connect to the public channel, “Advisor Ji, the public channel cannot connect. I can’t contact Cap Song and the others.”

“I also noticed. Probably related to the signal.” Ji Yushi nodded and frowned slightly, “Do you still remember which wall we came from?”

This seemingly simple question surprised both Tang Qi and Li Chun.

They wouldn’t have noticed it themselves if Ji Yushi hadn’t asked. After entering this room, they had all moved around and were no longer in their original positions.

The four walls were exactly the same. There was no reference to help distinguish between them. Even Ji Yushi couldn’t rely on his memory to do that — None of them were certain which wall they had entered from.

Tang Qi, “I don’t remember. Damn.”

Li Chun, “Me too!!”

The two subconsciously touched the walls in attempt to find a difference but all that the could feel was a smooth surface.

There were no doors on any of the four walls and no other exits.

The two were at a loss.

What they didn’t know was that this was also Ji Yushi’s first time where he was unable to rely on his memories.

After Li Chun touched every one of he walls, he gave up completely. The more he thought about it, the more he felt that this mission had its difficulty setting set to max. He simply sat down onto the floor, “Forget it. Let’s wait a little more. We’ll know which one we came from when Cap Song and the others come.”

Ji Yushi didn’t speak.

He appeared to be in thought.

Please read this from kk translates

“Let’s wait. They will come.” Li Chun said again, “It’s definitely just small delay. Didn’t the same thing happen when we got sucked into the mountain of garbage in the crevice?”

That was a possibility.

Tang Qi expressed his agreement, “That’s true. We just don’t know how long the wait would be.”

Li Chun still remembered the instructions they had received before setting off for this mission, “Let’s just wait then. We shouldn’t be rashly going around anyway. If any of us die, we would be dragging down the squad’s chance of succeeding.”

With Ji Yushi around, the two other teammates weren’t very worried.

But as for their motivation to take action, they still needed their captain Song Qinglan. One was the brain, and the other was one who took action. The two of them were simply a golden combination in the eyes of their teammates.

Moreover, for some reason, they felt that when Song Qinglan wasn’t around, Ji Yushi seemed to be colder and more distant. He wasn’t as lively as he was when Song Qinglan was around.

The two were looking forward to Cap Song’s arrival more than ever before.

*

An hour later.

In the empty sealed room, the seemingly endless wait had made their uneasiness worse. The three gradually became a little anxious.

Li Chun was the most talkative. At the beginning, he still chatted with them every now and then.

Tang Qi however was more introverted, and Ji Yushi was also one who didn’t like to gossip. After Li Chun talked for a while until his mouth was dry, he gave up and stopped.

“Still waiting?” Li Chun couldn’t stand it anymore, “Why does it seem like they’re not coming?”

Ji Yushi sat in the corner. He was originally playing Tetris on his game console. The clean, white walls made his features stand out all the more. Hearing that question, he stored away the game console, “It’s possible that they have gone to another place.”

Tang Qi, “There are other places?”

Ji Yushi said, “There must be. Tianqiong said this is a multiplayer mission so there must be more than just our squad here. We however haven’t met anyone else. This means that they must be somewhere else.”

This was a so-called ‘Tianqiong of all eras’. Since it was responsible for setting up a mission like this, the participants should have arrived in no particular order to ensure fairness.

After waiting for such a long time, it was enough for them to rule out the possibility of Song Qinglan and the others coming.

It was time to act.

Tang Qi walked over and decided to try touching the red ball.

Tang Qi’s stature allowed him to reach it easily. As soon as he touched it, he felt some weight. The ball had actually fallen into his hands.

Everyone in the room held their breaths, fearing that something was about to happen.

Fortunately, nothing happened.

This thing seemed to be just an ordinary ball.

Ji Yushi stood up from the corner and walked towards the centre of the room.

“Let me see.” Li Chun stood next to Tang Qi and took the ball. He turned the ball around over and over again, “It seems a little loose here——–Fuck!!”

“Beep——–”

Following a soft sound, a round hole suddenly appeared on the ground. Tang Qi and Li Chun who were standing in the middle of the room were caught off guard and immediately fell in.

Ji Yushi’s expression changed instantly. He leapt forward but wasn’t able to reach them in time.

“Fuck!”

Ji Yushi couldn’t help but throw out the profanity commonly used by the seventh squad. Before he could see the scene below clearly, there was another ‘beep—–’ and the round hole closed again.

At the same time, the red ball bounced back to its original position like a spring.

It returned to that place mid-air, floating steadily.

With the fate of his teammates uncertain, Ji Yushi broke out in cold sweat. He immediately retrieved the ball and took a few steps back before examining the loose spot pointed out by Li Chun.

There were indeed some well-hidden buttons there. There were not one, but six.

Ji Yushi randomly pressed one of them. Following a ‘beep—-‘, he saw a hole about one square metre in size appear on the wall in front of him.

The six buttons represented the six sides of the room.

Turns out, it really was the key to opening an exit.

Ji Yushi tried another two times and managed to make the round hole on the ground reappear.

“Are you alright?!”

He looked down anxiously.

Just as he had imagined, there was also a room below. The walls and ground were similarly pure white.

But the room was empty.

Li Chun and Tang Qi who had fallen earlier had disappeared into thin air.