Chapter 2292: The Unique Hanging Rope
Unexpectedly, there were other players to be encountered further back. When the room door opened from the other side, both people meeting face to face paused for a moment.
The newcomer's face was sallow, with knife scars on his arms, his lips cracked and bloody. When he saw Xu Huo—or more accurately, when he saw the food in Xu Huo's hands—his eyes froze.
"Food, give it to me." He stood at the other end of the room, demanding outright.
Xu Huo looked at him, then stuffed the last bit of food in his hand into his own mouth.
The other's expression seemed to shatter. He slumped weakly to the ground, his eyes rolling upward, as if sinking into emptiness.
"Are you alright?" Xu Huo greeted him from across the room.
"No." The other's posture didn't change. "But if you gave me something to eat and drink, I'd definitely be a lot better."
"Come and take it," Xu Huo reminded him.
"Can't fight, no strength." The other still sounded listless. "I walked too far. Just making it back here is already pretty good. As long as I don't run into cannibal players, I'll take whatever comes."
"How far did you go? Did the rooms behind change at all?" Xu Huo asked.
"Probably over twenty thousand rooms. It got too long, so I stopped counting." The other's eyes shifted downward. "If you want to know what's back there, trade me some food and drink."
Xu Huo smiled slightly and tossed him a sugar cube and a cup of water.
The man first took small sips of the water, leaving half a cup aside, then put the sugar cube into his mouth. After a moment, he let out a satisfied sigh. "Ah, that's good..."
Once he finished eating, Xu Huo said, "Can you talk now?"
The man glanced at him. "If you want to know, first you have to be a Super Evolver."
Xu Huo said nothing. The other wore an expression of understanding and continued, "There's a slight difference in the corpses. From what I can tell, every one or two thousand rooms, the time flow on the corpses changes a bit, forming a contrast with the rooms before and after."
"In the earlier rooms, you can't really tell, but further back, the difference in time flow becomes obvious on the corpses—mainly in the degree of decay."
"But that's the only difference."
"I thought these connected rooms might be some kind of hint, but it's just another cycle—just a different kind of cycle. These varying time flows seem to be a separate progression, all the way up to over twenty thousand rooms, and it's still the same."
"These rooms in this space refresh every twelve hours. Is there any difference between twelve thousand and twenty-four thousand?" Xu Huo interrupted.
"I didn't notice any," the other said. "The time flow on the corpses that do differ is also progressive. Twelve thousand and twenty-four thousand don't form a cycle. But by twenty-four thousand, the corpses in other rooms already have visible bones—earlier players mentioned this too. Apparently, someone walked to a hundred thousand rooms and then turned back, saying that by then, what was hanging might just be a skeleton with skin still attached."
"As for what's beyond a hundred thousand, I don't know. By the time I reached over twenty thousand, I had no hope left."
"After twenty thousand comes a hundred thousand, and after a hundred thousand, there might be a million. This place is infinite."
"If there really is a way out, it definitely isn't after a million rooms."
He pointed to the corpse in the room as he spoke. "Maybe the way out has been right in front of us all along."
"The corpse or the hanging rope?" Xu Huo's gaze also fell on it. "I hung myself on the rope once before. It didn't do anything..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
"You noticed too." The player across from him laughed. "The corpse can be taken down, it can be damaged, and it refreshes after twelve hours. But that hanging rope—it can't be destroyed or moved at all. It's even harder than the floor in the room."
"It's already strange enough that there's a corpse hanging in the room, but the corpse is an outsider, not originally part of this space. Only the hanging rope and these rooms are one and the same. The corpse should be like any other item a player brings in—something that can be refreshed. The difference is that other things disappear after refreshing, but the corpse just stays."
"The time power on the hanging rope isn't easy to budge," Xu Huo said.
"Of course it's not that easy, but it's the only thing in the room that stands out from everything else," the other replied. "I came back to gather a few Temporal Evolvers and work together."
He introduced himself as he spoke. "My name is Shi Sanjiu. A-Class player, from a B-level wormhole point. I was planning to slack off and do a B-level instance to relax, but I ended up running into a one-third game."
Xu Huo continued using the name Xu Zhi and fabricated a backstory for himself.
Shi Sanjiu laughed after hearing him out. "You're not from a D-level wormhole point, are you?"
Xu Huo raised an eyebrow. "You can tell?"
"There aren't many Temporal Evolvers on the overall leaderboard for D-level wormhole points. I've seen all their profiles," Shi Sanjiu said confidently.
"As far as I know, there are at least fifty D-level wormhole points," Xu Huo said, his expression turning serious.
"More than that. Counting the wormhole points that have already disappeared, it's over a hundred. And some wormhole points, because their sub-districts have encountered various accidents or haven't evolved enough, rarely have trains passing through. They look like they've vanished, but they still exist." Shi Sanjiu said casually. "The single wormhole point leaderboard isn't worth looking at. The combined wormhole point leaderboard is still worth checking out. Almost all the powerful Super Evolvers are on it."
"D-level? None."
Xu Huo smiled. "Maybe I just haven't made the list yet."
Shi Sanjiu studied him seriously for a moment. "Doesn't seem like it."
Their eyes met, and neither pursued the topic further. Xu Huo shifted the conversation. "I haven't paid much attention to the leaderboards. Are Super Players on them?"
"Powerful players who become Super Players have long since left the leaderboards—whether they become wanted criminals or hold instances." Shi Sanjiu said with a tone of envy. "That's basically retirement. At their level, buying a few instruments or items to cross wormhole points isn't a problem."
"Seeing how extraordinary your background is, why don't you get yourself an instance and leave the game?" Xu Huo teased. "Early retirement, right?"
Shi Sanjiu waved his hand. "I'm not someone who can stay in one place. Besides, I'm not strong enough. Plenty of instance bosses have flipped the script. Even if I got an Instance Authorization, I'd have to give it away."
"Instance Authorizations can be transferred?" Xu Huo showed some interest.
"Not really transferred—mostly sold. If an instance is born because of you, you can trade it directly with the game platform," Shi Sanjiu said. "But the more closely an instance is tied to a person, the harder it is to sell. Especially random instances. Fixed instances have fixed locations, but random instances follow the holder... Still, players rarely hold instances, so the game can't be bothered to manage them."
He tilted his chin toward Xu Huo. "What instance are you holding in your hand?"