Apocalyptic Era: Starting from picking up a Bishoujo

I am Zhuang Cheng.

I'm not someone who can't endure being alone, but when forced into a prolonged isolation without knowing if I could ever return to civilized society, even I couldn't think with a normal mindset.

The clues in this underground chamber were too few, and there were not many objects that could help me generate positive associations. Before long, my mind began aimlessly wandering like a space documentary playing on loop. In a sense, I was just like those bored individuals who, without their phones in the restroom, would contemplate the meaning of life and the end of the universe. It's not that I didn't want to reason how to leave this place properly, it was just that I was in the restroom.

However, after some time, as I lay on the floor like a fish washed up on the beach, trying to find some revelation in the texture of the concrete ceiling, a spark of thought suddenly shone in my consciousness.

I sat up abruptly, searching through my memory for clues and pondering the inspiration I'd just had.

I seemed to understand the pattern of the cave's disappearance and appearance.

The disappearance and emergence of the cave might follow the same set of rules. At first, I thought, "Merely knowing why the cave disappears is not enough," and I was wrong. Agent Kong and the demon hunter woman might have thought the cause of the cave lay outside the ritual array, but they were wrong, the answer was the "ritual array."

Agent Kong had mentioned that the purpose of that ritual array was to "open some Different Space overlapping with the real world," and he deemed it a failure because it "lacked the final part of the Magic Symbol."

I wasn't clear on the specifics of the Magic Symbol, but since the cave appeared, it probably meant that the missing Magic Symbol of the ritual array was somehow completed by accident.

So, what exactly completed the missing Magic Symbol of the ritual array?

At this moment, my suspicion fell on the black plush carpet.

Strictly speaking, it was the letter pattern on the black plush carpet.

It wasn't that those letters were equivalent to Magic Symbols, but perhaps the lines forming the letters matched the requirements of the Magic Symbols. And I had enough circumstantial evidence to support this reasoning.

Think back carefully to each instance of the cave's appearance and disappearance, every time Changan and I performed the actions of covering and uncovering the black plush carpet, the state of the cave would toggle between appearing and vanishing.

This morning, Changan and I uncovered the carpet, and the cave appeared; then we covered it, and in front of Agent Kong, uncovered it again, making the cave disappear; later in the afternoon Agent Kong accidentally covered the carpet while checking the room alone, and when I came alone at night, I uncovered it, and the cave appeared.

The same was true the night before last when Changan first witnessed the cave. When he uncovered the carpet for the first time and discovered the cave and reported it, then in front of the police, he "uncovered it again" — yes, he specifically mentioned "uncovered it again" — meaning that he had covered the carpet before the police arrived.

Why would he cover the carpet in between? Because he was scared. When he was with me today, he said that he was worried that there might be something dirty hidden under the cave, so he chose to cover the wooden lid and the carpet together the night before last.

In this series of events, the black plush carpet acted like a "switch," and all changes were directly related to it.

Is this reasoning correct? Can I be sure of this now?

No, wait, wait ... I've missed a very important link!

That is, why after I entered the cave, the entrance of the cave would disappear.

If changes in the state of the cave happened only after covering it with the black plush carpet, then the cave should not vanish on its own after I entered.

Unless ... unless after I entered the cave, an "unidentified individual" sneaked into the fifteenth-floor room and closed the cave.

I had indeed been monitoring my surroundings all along, but now, I was not able to monitor the real world outside the cave. Moreover, the cave had disappeared while I was pulled into an illusion by the black jade, so I couldn't observe if anyone was outside.

Also, this reasoning had another horribly desperate issue.

That is, as I initially feared, the opening and closure of the cave could indeed only be conducted from outside the cave; it couldn't be opened from this side.

I was truly at a dead end.

No, I couldn't surrender now, not after fighting to the end. It would be utterly disgraceful. In seeking an adventure that would transcend reality, I shouldn't perish so simply without a struggle. Struggling to the last breath was in line with my aesthetics.

So, how should I struggle? The position I was in and the ritual array outside were not even in the same dimension ... wait, Agent Kong mentioned before that this Different Space was supposed to overlap with the real world. Since it was an overlap, one couldn't simply consider them as "separate."

In other words, if I drew the letter pattern from the black plush carpet on the ceiling, could it possibly overlap with the ritual array outside?

Still, there was a problem: first, the surface of the ceiling and the surface of the floor were not on the same plane ... but the pattern on the black plush carpet and the Array on the floor were also not entirely on the same plane. If that could work over there, maybe I could try it here too. Although the degrees of deviation on both sides were significantly different, how many centimeters was the thickness of this floorboard ...

Forget it, thinking too much is not as good as trying it out, let's just try!

I raised my right hand, my fingers aiming at where the entrance to the cave used to be on the ceiling. Then suddenly, flames appeared out of nowhere, like slender snakes raving through the air, climbing onto the surface of the ceiling.

The letters on the black plush carpet spelled "carpet," which I remembered clearly. Then there were the style and size of the font ... as I recalled, I altered the position of the flame snakes, finally adjusting them to match my memory.

After completing the task, I took a long breath and observed the ceiling with trepidation.

There was no change.

I couldn't help but feel profoundly disappointed.

Is this still not possible? Could it really be because we are not in the same dimension, or is the floor too thick, with the deviation between the two planes being too much?

Or could it be because I should not have used fire to trace the patterns? The ritual array is drawn with blood, perhaps I too should use blood... But the letters on the black plush carpet weren't made of blood either, could it be because that dirty carpet, as an object from the murder scene, had been steeped in bloodstains...

I tilted my head back to observe, moving around simultaneously, viewing the fire-letter spell I had pieced together from different angles. After all, there was a chance I had gotten the spelling wrong.

Wandering around in this posture could easily make one dizzy, and before long I too felt somewhat uncomfortable. Lowering my head, I closed my eyes and rested for two seconds.

When I reopened my eyes, something incredible happened.

A concrete staircase had appeared in front of me, seemingly out of nowhere.

After being momentarily stunned, my gaze followed the stairs upward, only to see at the end of the staircase, on the ceiling, a light brown wooden lid.

The entrance and exit to the cave had appeared once again!

-

Why the entrance and exit did not appear immediately after I traced the fire-letter spell, I only came up with a conjecture that might or might not be true after the fact.

This conjecture was somewhat laughable; initially, I had been standing directly beneath the cave, and the concrete stairs afterward appeared right there. As if in a strategy game, where you can't build a new structure on top of another target, perhaps it was because I had occupied the location of the stairs, that's why the stairs and the entrance didn't show up promptly.

To avoid any more unexpected occurrences, as soon as I caught sight of the entrance, I immediately took action, ascended the stairs, reached the wooden lid, and then pushed it right open, returning to the fifteenth-floor room.

I had finally returned to the real world.

I looked around and let out a long sigh of relief.

At the same time, I vaguely felt the near-enlightenment mindset that had emerged when I was alone and facing death in the cave below, was now slowly receding.

That enlightenment mindset must only surface under special circumstances, and having narrowly escaped death, I could no longer maintain it. However, I think that state of mind must have left a special imprint in my heart.

Now, the me that had entered the cave was utterly different from the me who had never entered.

I chewed over my feelings and then turned to look behind me.

Let's set aside the abstract problems for now and take a look at the real issues at hand.

During the process of prying open the wooden lid, I did not feel the black plush carpet that should have been covering the top. And after emerging, I saw that the carpet was still piled up beside it as usual. This meant that during my time in the cave, there had been no "unidentified person" entering the fifteenth-floor room to cover up with the carpet.

Since my method had successfully led to my escape, it meant that my deductions about the cave's patterns of appearance and disappearance were correct. But if there was no "unidentified person," how could I explain the previous disappearance of the cave's entrance and exit?

I was at a complete loss and then turned to look at the cave entrance.

This cave, this basement... I thought I had figured it out, but in reality, there was still much that was unknown.

Not to mention, I still didn't know what the black jade stone I had obtained from the basement actually was, nor what the misty illusion and the three shadows I had seen were all about.

More secrets that I was unaware of, lay hidden below.

Should I... make one more trip down?

Although thinking of heading back immediately after such a narrow escape seemed somewhat improper, the cave would be destroyed by tomorrow. If I didn't complete my exploration now, I might never get a chance again.

I really entertained this idea for a moment, but then another anomaly made me temporarily put it aside.

All the "Fireflies" I had set up in the real world had vanished. It goes without saying, this was due to my disconnection from them while in the basement. The biggest problem now was that I had lost my monitoring of Mazao.

I couldn't stay put any longer.

Mazao would from time to time bring up leaving me; if I had lost monitoring of her for a short time I could accept it. My initial thought was to make a quick trip there and back. But now that I had lost track of her for an extended period, the nature of the situation became completely different. If she actually left during this time, I would never be able to find her again.

It's possible that it was Mazao's Broom Star Physique that allowed me to encounter these strange events. I wasn't so gone as to not distinguish between "a satisfied meal" and "steady meals."

I had no way to explore the basement and dispatch "Fireflies" to my home at the same time, so I had to leave it be for now.

However, before leaving, I took photos and videos of the ritual array and the black plush carpet from various angles. Maybe later I could replicate this array somewhere else.

After doing all this, I turned and left the fifteenth-floor room, walking out of the apartment building.

Looking up at the moon in the night sky, I finally felt the sensation of "seeing daylight again."

Yet, I hadn't gone far when an oddly-shaped shadow eerily emerged before my eyes, blocking my path.