Chapter 31

Chapter 31: There’s Still the Option to Just Die

Who was Pei Shuo?

How could they ask that?!

For one disorienting moment, Lin Jianyuan felt the world was utterly unreal. He glanced blankly around him: familiar coworkers, the office, vines spiraling across the walls and ceiling, the squish toy and little rock in his pocket that never shut up.

All of it was as familiar as breathing.

But something was wrong. Something had been off for a long time now.

Vines sprouting from people’s eyes, a talking squish toy and a rock—no matter how he looked at it, none of it was normal.

No. No. These things shouldn’t exist.

They must all be hallucinations!

…So was Pei Shuo also a hallucination?

That cheerful, warm-hearted young man, with eyes that sparkled and a soul too soft to stand seeing anyone suffer—a giant golden retriever who brought him breakfast every day.

But if Pei Shuo was a hallucination, what about all that breakfast he’d eaten?

“Lin Jianyuan? Lin Jianyuan!”

Suddenly, Lin Jianyuan’s head spun, and a wave of nausea hit him. The voices around him turned to mush as he shoved through the crowd, barely keeping himself from throwing up.

A harsh reproach blocked his way.

“Lin Jianyuan! Where do you think you’re going during work hours again?!”

Yu Xiuli glared at him, eyes blazing behind her thick black-rimmed glasses.

Annoyed, Lin Jianyuan couldn’t be bothered to explain.

He opted for the simplest solution.

“Urgh—aaagh, blegh!”

He opened his mouth and unleashed a spectacular fountain of vomit, splattering Yu Xiuli from head to toe in sticky brown sludge.

Yu Xiuli: “?”

Crowd: “???”

Damn, last time he just pulled shit out of his pocket; this time, he kept it in his mouth?

Everyone’s face twisted in utter horror.

But a second later, they realized—wait. That wasn’t actual shit!

It was just undigested soda crackers…

So it was just puke, after all.

That’s fine then.

Everyone relaxed in collective relief.

Of course, “everyone” here did not include Yu Xiuli.

Because she had been drenched for real!

The sticky mess kept dribbling down her cheeks and collar—not to mention the smell! That hot, stomach-churning sour stench!

Ugh!

Gagging sounds burst from her.

Yu Xiuli broke down, dry heaving in horror right on the spot!

Compared to Yu Xiuli’s total collapse, Lin Jianyuan seemed perfectly calm.

He snagged a napkin from Qin Shi’s desk, wiped his mouth haphazardly, and strode outside.

The crowd stared, stunned—it was all strangely familiar.

A certified madman having a meltdown, a boss retching and breaking down…

How to put it?

Just one word.

Satisfying!!!

After he left the office, the nausea in Lin Jianyuan’s throat faded, but his head was still swimming.

Am I really going to work myself into hypertension? That would definitely count as a workplace injury.

The thought made Lin Jianyuan smile—he couldn’t help but imagine a blissful life full of worker’s comp and sick leave.

His mind was still a mess, reality and fantasy tangled as one, and he began to wonder whether he’d remembered his meds these last few days.

Whatever. A cigarette would clear his head.

He headed for the elevator. Just then, the faintest, most distant voice brushed his ear.

“Yuan-ge!...”

Pei Shuo?!

Lin Jianyuan stopped dead and shoved open the fire escape, hard.

That voice had come from inside.

Hallucination or not, he had to see for himself what was going on.

The stairwell was dark. So dark. It was as if something huge and unseen was swallowing up the light, gulp after gulp.

Even the EXIT sign near the floor was flickering, its little green escape man less reassuring than ominous—a horror movie prop.

But the worst fear was never the darkness itself, but the unknown that lurked within it.

Lin Jianyuan stopped on one of the landings.

That desperate call, so much like Pei Shuo’s, never sounded again. Instead, there came a slurred gurgling, like bubbles surfacing deep underwater.

Blub-blub. Blub-blub-blub-blub.

“Don’t go any farther…” squeaked the squish toy, uneasy. “Something’s really wrong down there…”

“It is strange,” the little rock said hesitantly, “but what kind of presence is this?”

Lin Jianyuan’s ears tingled at the sound. The two stress toys in his pocket were yanking at his sleeve, desperate to keep him from going further, which only annoyed him.

What was that bubbling sound? Where the hell was Pei Shuo?

Was anything he was seeing, hearing, experiencing even real anymore?

What the fuck was going on here?

—Was he the one who’d lost his mind, or had the world gone mad?

The more Lin Jianyuan thought, the less sense it made, and the angrier he became.

Then, from below, came an utterly exasperated voice.

“Seriously? You’ve barely eaten anything and you’re already full. What the hell, you call yourself a predator with an appetite like that?”

Lin Jianyuan: “.”

Squish toy and little rock: “??”

Relief washed instantly over Lin Jianyuan.

He told the two toys in his pocket, “See? That bubbling wasn’t a monster at all. Just someone with indigestion.”

Squish toy: “No way? But wait—?”

The next second, Lin Jianyuan rounded the landing and saw two strange things.

More accurately, they were two strange shapes, shadowy and vague—there was hardly any light, just the ghoulish glow from the EXIT sign’s little green figure.

By that ghostly green light, Lin Jianyuan could just make out their forms:

On the left, a black… a garbage bag, with rows of shark’s teeth?

On the right, an eyeball the size of a basketball, with three pairs of wings spreading angelically from either side.

Many eyes met his gaze.

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

Shark teeth and angel-eye: “??”

Squish toy and little rock: “???”

Wait, how had all three of you ended up making eye contact?!

It was the squish toy that reacted first. It wriggled from his pocket, yanking the little rock along, and hurled itself at the creatures opposite.

With a piercing screech, it shrieked, “Lin Jianyuan, run! That’s an A-class Abyssal Maw and—”

An Abyssal Maw and what?

Lin Jianyuan strained to hear the rest, but in a flash, the shark teeth shot right at him.

He was so close, time seemed to freeze; he could almost make out every nick and dent in the hundreds of razor teeth.

Then everything went black.

Lin Jianyuan vanished, swallowed by the gloomy depths of the emergency stairwell.

...

Lin Jianyuan was woozy, head swimming. When his feet touched ground again, he opened his eyes to find himself facing a vast… landfill?

He was in a cavern, dark and deep, where piles of junk formed mountains: bound files, greasy pancake wrappers, filthy red stamps, and every kind of assorted trash imaginable.

…Wait. Files? Pancake wrappers?

A realization struck him, and he shouted into the darkness, “Pei Shuo!”

“Pei Shuo, are you there? Pei Shuo!”

His call echoed through the pitch-black cave. Before long, a distant voice sounded from behind the trash heap.

“Yuan-ge!!! I’m over here!!!”

Even from afar, Lin Jianyuan could hear the excitement in his voice. He hurried toward the sound; Pei Shuo ran and shouted as well.

Soon enough, they used each other’s voices to find one another.

“Yuan-ge! It’s really you!”

By the time Pei Shuo reached him, he was nearly crying, his big puppy eyes brimming with aggrieved excitement. Lin Jianyuan could practically picture a giant golden retriever’s tail wagging fit to break off.

Lin Jianyuan: “What happened?”

Pei Shuo: “I have no idea! I was just going to work, same as always. I stepped into the elevator, everything was fine, but when I got out the next floor was pitch black. I stepped forward, and suddenly—I was here...”

Lin Jianyuan: “Didn’t you think anything was off?”

Pei Shuo scratched his head. “Not really. I just thought the hallway had lost power.”

Lin Jianyuan was speechless for a moment. “Your nerves are really something.”

Pei Shuo: “Then how’d you get here, ge?”

Lin Jianyuan: “Oh, there were two monsters chatting in the stairwell. I wasn’t paying attention, ran right into them. One of them opened its mouth and swallowed me whole.”

Pei Shuo: “…”

And who was the one with nerves of steel?!

“What’s done is done,” Lin Jianyuan said. “Let’s find a way out.”

“Wait—ge,” Pei Shuo said, visibly shaken, “how are you so calm? Aren’t you scared at all?”

Lin Jianyuan: “I’m mentally ill. I hallucinate all the time—this is nothing. You knew that, didn’t you?”

Pei Shuo: “.”

Alright then.

Lin Jianyuan: “But this time, the hallucination feels different from the usual.”

Pei Shuo tensed immediately. “How so?”

Lin Jianyuan: “Why are you also in my hallucination?”

Pei Shuo: “Huh??”

Lin Jianyuan stepped up and waved his splayed hand in front of him.

Pei Shuo: “?”

Pei Shuo’s gaze followed instinctively. When Lin Jianyuan pointed east, he looked east; when he pointed west, Pei Shuo looked west.

Lin Jianyuan poked his finger right at his nose, and Pei Shuo went cross-eyed.

Lin Jianyuan couldn’t help bursting into laughter.

At last, the golden retriever realized he’d been made a fool of and snapped, “Yuan-ge!”

Suddenly, Lin Jianyuan seemed to recall something, pulled his hand back, and muttered, “No, that’s no good. Feeling like a person doesn’t mean you are one, after all—a clementine feels just like a frog if you squeeze it, but it’s still a clementine. Squish toy feels like a squish toy—oh wait, squish toy is actually a squish toy…”

To Pei Shuo, all this sounded like utter madness.

The more Pei Shuo listened, the more horrified he became. “Ge, stop, you’re freaking me out!” he wailed, face drawn with fear.

Lin Jianyuan: “?”

Pei Shuo’s face begged, Please, don’t go mad right now. Lin Jianyuan sighed helplessly. “Alright, let’s look around and see what’s really going on.”

“Are you sure we have to look around?” Pei Shuo hesitated. “Maybe we should just stay here and wait for rescue… I’m afraid we’ll get lost if we go any farther. I was already lost before you even got here…”

Lin Jianyuan: “Don’t count on anyone else. No one’s coming to save us.”

Pei Shuo: “Why not?”

Outside the Abyssal Maw.

The instant the squish toy snail struck the Abyssal Maw, three pairs of wings opened wide.

Beneath those angelic white wings, a massive eyeball fixed it with a stare.

Caught off guard, the squish toy locked eyes with it, and froze in place.

Plop.

The squish toy dropped to the ground, its squishy body bouncing twice.

“Huh? Why am I here?”

Time Thief scratched its head with an antenna, then began dragging its heavy snail shell away in a wobbly crawl.

A damp, glistening trail marked its path.

Thud-thud-thud-thud...

The little rock tumbled down the steps.

It rolled right down to the bottom floor.

“No one’s coming,” Lin Jianyuan said, “because once we’re swallowed, everyone will forget us. The Abyssal Maw doesn’t just devour the living—it can swallow up the very existence of whatever it eats.”

“What? How do you even know that?” Pei Shuo’s puppy eyes went wide with fear and shock. “Wait. Am I dreaming? How could this kind of ‘devouring existence’ thing exist in the real world? I must’ve watched too much anime…”

Lin Jianyuan: “Because I made up this entire setting in my head.”

Pei Shuo: “Huh???”

The more Pei Shuo tried to follow, the more lost he felt.

“Then why do you still remember me, Yuan-ge?” Pei Shuo asked, baffled. “Didn’t you say you only came to find me because you heard me call for help?”

Lin Jianyuan: “Oh, right. Forget what I said. That rule doesn’t hold. I’m really not cut out for suspense or mysteries.”

Pei Shuo: “…”

“So what do we do?” Now Pei Shuo really looked ready to cry. “I suck at mysteries too! And I’m terrified of dark escape rooms—they always have to go easy on me. What are we supposed to do now…”

Lin Jianyuan soothed, “Don’t worry, we’re not completely out of options.”

Pei Shuo’s eyes lit up. “Yeah?”

Lin Jianyuan: “There’s still the option to just die.”

Pei Shuo: “………………”