21: Chapter 21 A Sudden Turn of Events on the Highway

The truck drove along the gray highway.

Chen Mo leaned against the passenger seat, eyes closed, feeling the changes within his body.

Those golden lines were denser than before, like a net covering his entire body.

They flowed rhythmically, and each movement brought a wave of warmth that spread from his chest to his limbs.

Darkness Affinity.

He could feel that even inside the enclosed truck, the things hidden in the shadows were drawing close to him—not to attack, but with a certain... closeness.

It was as if darkness itself had become his ally.

"How do you feel?" Old Li asked.

Chen Mo opened his eyes.

"Not bad."

Old Li smiled.

"Not bad? You just completed the Memory Corridor and were promoted to Rank E, and now you say 'not bad'?" He shook his head. "You are the calmest person I have ever met."

Chen Mo didn't respond.

He looked out the window; the scenery on both sides of the highway remained the same—wild fields, abandoned vehicles, and the occasional sculpture.

But those sculptures looked different now.

In the vision of the Pupil of the Sequence, they were wrapped in more lines. Those lines were faint but clearer than before, as if they were conveying some message to him.

Chen Mo tried to "read" those lines.

【Loser · No. 3742】

【Rank in Life: Rank E】

【Cause of Death: Lost in the Memory Corridor】

【Time of Death: Day 127 of the grave calendar】

Day 127 of the grave calendar.

How long ago was that?

"Old Li," Chen Mo began, "what is the grave calendar?"

Old Li paused.

"How do you know about the grave calendar?"

"It's on those sculptures."

Old Li was silent for a few seconds.

"The grave calendar is the Ghost Realm's own time," he said. "It's different from the time when we entered. Sometimes you stay inside for a day, and a week might have already passed outside. Sometimes you stay inside for a week, and only a day has passed outside."

Chen Mo listened.

"What is carved on those sculptures is the time of their 'death'," Old Li said. "According to the grave calendar, that first batch has been dead for hundreds of years."

Hundreds of years.

Chen Mo looked at the sculptures outside the window, imagining them when they were alive.

People from hundreds of years ago, just like him, suddenly arrived in this hellish place, struggling desperately to survive, only to die not far from their goal.

"You just said they got lost in the Memory Corridor," Chen Mo said. "What does it mean to be lost?"

Old Li's expression became somewhat complex.

"It means you can't tell truth from falsehood," he said. "Those things in the Memory Corridor are all your deepest fears. If you get too immersed and believe they are real, you will be trapped inside forever."

He paused.

"When I saw my daughter in there, I almost didn't make it back."

Chen Mo didn't speak.

He remembered the people he saw in the Memory Corridor—the director, the auntie, and that 'self'.

Every one of them was terrifyingly real.

Every one of them had almost made him stop.

But he didn't.

"How did you get out?" he asked.

Old Li was silent for a long time.

"Because my daughter said something to me," he said. "She said, 'Dad, you should go.'"

Chen Mo paused.

"That was the last thing she said to me when she was alive," Old Li's voice was very low, "before I left home to carry out my last mission. And then I never went back."

Silence fell inside the truck.

After a long while, Chen Mo spoke.

"She was right."

Old Li nodded.

"Yes. She is my daughter, and she is always right."

The truck continued forward.

The sky began to darken.

It wasn't normal darkness, but the gray gloom before the arrival of a Ghost Night. Mist surged from the end of the highway, quickly swallowing the road ahead.

Old Li slowed down and turned on the fog lights.

"We need to find a place to spend the night," he said. "Traveling in this weather is too dangerous."

Chen Mo nodded.

After driving for another twenty minutes, a service area appeared ahead.

It wasn't a large one like No. 1, but a small service area with only a gas station and a convenience store.

Old Li drove the car in and parked next to the gas pump.

The two got out of the car.

The service area was very quiet, quiet in an eerie way.

The door of the convenience store was open, and it was pitch black inside; nothing could be seen.

The gas station lights were still on, emitting a buzzing electrical sound.

Chen Mo's Pupil of the Sequence swept across the surroundings.

In the golden vision, there were no lines of any Ghost Shadow.

But in one place, the lines were particularly dense—

The warehouse behind the convenience store.

"There is something over there," Chen Mo said.

Old Li looked in the direction of his gaze.

"What Rank?"

"I can't tell. It's faint, but very dense," Chen Mo said. "It might be in a dormant state."

The two looked at each other.

"Want to check it out?" Old Li asked.

Chen Mo nodded.

The two tightened their grip on their weapons and walked toward the warehouse.

The door was locked.

Old Li took out a piece of wire, poked it into the keyhole, and opened it in a few tries.

The door was pushed open, and it was pitch black inside.

Chen Mo turned on his flashlight.

The beam shone in—

Shelves.

Row upon row of shelves were piled with various supplies. Fuel, food, medicine, weapons—everything was there.

It was exactly the same as the warehouse under that church.

"This is..." Old Li was stunned.

Chen Mo walked in and checked carefully.

Fuel, fifty liters per barrel, twenty barrels.

Compressed dry rations, enough for one person to eat for a year.

Medical kits, military grade, twenty of them.

Weapon crates, containing standard-issue rifles, ten of them.

And several large crates; opening them revealed—they were parts, vehicle parts.

"This is another supply point," Chen Mo said.

Old Li walked over and looked at the supplies.

"But who built it?"

Chen Mo shook his head.

He squatted down to inspect the crates. The crates were printed with serial numbers, very similar to the numbers in the previous warehouse.

The only difference was that the crates here had an extra logo.

A skull logo.

It was exactly the same as the one on Old Li's truck.

Old Li saw it too.

His expression changed.

"This is... ours."

Chen Mo looked at him.

"A supply point of the Old Driver Alliance," Old Li said. "I thought it was long gone."

He walked to a crate, squatted down, and stroked the logo.

"These supplies were prepared by my own hands," he said. "Back then, we planned to establish a supply line extending from the outer perimeter all the way to the Source of the Sequence. But later..."

He didn't continue.

But Chen Mo knew what happened later.

Infighting. Death. Disbandment.

"How long have these things been here?" Chen Mo asked.

Old Li shook his head.

"I don't know. Maybe years, maybe over a decade."

He stood up and looked around.

"But one thing is certain—this place has never been discovered by anyone. Including those Ghost Shadows."

Chen Mo nodded.

His Pupil of the Sequence had been active the whole time, and indeed, he hadn't detected any anomalies.

"We'll stay here tonight," Old Li said. "The supplies are plentiful, and the place is safe."

The two began moving supplies, clearing out a corner of the warehouse, and laying out their sleeping bags.

By the time they finished, it was already late at night.

Chen Mo sat on his sleeping bag, eating compressed dry rations.

Old Li sat opposite him, smoking a cigarette.

"Do you think that place really exists?" Old Li suddenly asked.

"What place?"

"The Source of the Sequence."

Chen Mo was silent for a few seconds.

"It exists," he said. "I have seen it."

Old Li paused.

"In the Memory Corridor?" he asked. "That was just a hallucination."

"It wasn't a hallucination," Chen Mo said. "It was real. I saw a door, golden, covered in carved patterns. The door was closed, but I knew that was what lay behind it."

Old Li stared at him.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Old Li was silent for a long time.

Then he stood up.

"Tomorrow, I will go with you."

Chen Mo looked at him.

"But you can't see the path, can you?"

"I can't see it, but I can follow you," Old Li said. "In case you are in danger, I can still help."

Chen Mo didn't speak.

He knew what Old Li meant by "help."

If he got lost inside, Old Li would find a way from the outside.

If he couldn't come out from inside, Old Li would...

Forget it.

Chen Mo lay down and closed his eyes.

"Suit yourself."

Old Li smiled and also lay down.

Silence fell inside the warehouse.

There was only the sound of the wind outside, and the occasional wailing that sounded like a Ghost Shadow from afar.

Chen Mo kept his eyes open, staring at the ceiling in the darkness.

The Source of the Sequence.

He was getting closer and closer to it.

But the closer he got, the more he felt something was wrong.

That feeling was indescribable; it was like someone was watching him from the shadows, waiting for him.

Waiting for him to go in.

Chen Mo closed his eyes.

No matter who was waiting, he would go.

Because that was the only way.