Meeting but Not Recognising

The door was already opened slightly.

Light filtered in through the small slit, illuminating Miss Decisive's green face.

"Can it be done?" asked You Huo.

021 felt conflicted internally, "....No."

You Huo looked at her silently.

She then added: "It is very difficult, and dangerous."

You Huo: "For example?"

"For example....." 021 racked her brains, "This happened once before. An invigilator made a mistake and locked an examinee in an already occupied room."

You Huo leaned next to the door waiting for her to continue rambling.

021 said: "Coincidentally, those two examinees knew each other. What was even more coincidental was that they were each other's' nightmares. Does this sound familiar?"

You Huo said: "Continue."

021: "In short, what A was most afraid of seeing was B, and what B was most afraid of seeing was A. It was something like that. With the two placed in the same confinement room, what do you think happened?"

The young lady not only rambled, she even gestured with her body.

It was a pity her audience didn't buy it.

Fortunately, she was used to the other person's cold and aloof demeanour. Without waiting for You Huo to speak, she revealed the answer to the mystery: "In a single confined room, there were two A's and two B's."

"One was the true person themselves, while the other was an image created from the other party's fear. Now think about you and 001. Don't you think it's similar to A and B? If I confined you two together, what if there are two of you and two of him? Four pairs of eyes looking at each other...…."

021 paused appropriately to create a feeling of trepidation: "Let's not talk about how horrible that could be. What about the confinement room?"

Even if the invigilators don't go crazy, the system would go crazy.

After listening to her, You Huo nodded: "So it is possible, it's just that the most feared scenes of both parties would converge?"

"...…."

021 internally felt that her efforts were wasted. All that talking she did wasn't to let him come to this conclusion!

If he was 078, his head would have already been twisted off.

But the other party was You Huo. She could only take a deep breath and keep smiling.

"It won't necessarily converge." 021 explained: "They can also cover up. If one person's fear is significantly stronger than the other, it would cover up the other. Or, there is a possibility of the two scenes combining to form a new scenario. That would be the worst."

She wanted to say a few more in hopes of getting You Huo to give up.

But this great master just nodded and said: "You guys have done this more than once?"

"...…"

Damn you.

Miss 021 even had the urge to kill.

Except for the culprit You Huo, she would kill whoever appeared before her next.

Just as she thought this, someone really came over to give up their life.

Someone knocked on closed door to the first confinement room. When 021 opened the door, she saw the punching bag 078 standing outside.

He looked a little surprised: "You haven't left yet?"

021 simply: "Leaving now."

078: "Why so long?"

"Just checking to see if the confinement room is malfunctioning or if this tender looking examinee really has no fears." 021 said.

This young lady's expression was cold to the extreme. Her hand behind her back however waved furiously at You Huo.

078 had long grown used to this young lady's manner of speech and answered normally: "It's good that you haven't left yet, you saved me having to go upstairs. 001 just joked around with me but that reminded me of something."

021 looked at him suspiciously. She had a bad feeling.

"How about this? Let's confine them together. In any case, it's boring for them staying in here alone and the purpose of punishing them isn't achieved. Confining them together might increase the effect." 078 said, "Wasn't it covered in the rules? If there are problems with the confinement room or if it cannot meet the needs, other appropriate measures can be put in place including merging the rooms."

021: "...."

In fact, they had done something like this before, so it wasn't something they had not done before. 078 however always liked to pull out all sorts of reasons to support his case when proposing something to 021 to make his words seem more convincing.

Look, didn't he shock 021 just now?

Uh...perhaps he went a little overboard.

078 internally thought this.

A few seconds later, Miss Decisive wore a "I'm going to break the legs of this colleague of mine" expression as she brought You Huo into the second confinement room.

"In any case, be careful." She mouthed these words to You Huo with her back facing the door.

When she was done, she changed her expression and went out to look for 078 to deal with.

.

Inside confinement room 2, the scene of the ruin site was already beginning to appear.

The sky was still extremely high, the air was cold and the forest in the distance was still as quiet as before.

It wasn't very different from last time but there were also some slight changes.

For example, those stacked metal pipes.

Last time, there weren't much rust on the surfaces of the metal pipes. It could be considered the newest and cleanest thing in this ruin site.

But this time, there were three additional red marks on them.

Qin Jiu bent down before the metal pipe and reached out to touch it.

Unsurprisingly, it was dried blood.

It was not only on the metal pipes, there were also similar marks on the ground below his feet.....

Qin Jiu gently rubbed his fingers.

After one confinement session, his memory of this place appeared to have become even more clearer.

He didn't notice this change himself until it was once again recreated inside this confinement room. Because the scene here is created from his memories, some details that weren't there last time were now present.

.

Qin Jiu stared at the bloodstains for a moment. He then sat down on the same metal pipe as the one in his memory.

Once in this position, those three bloodstains matched with him.

It was as if his fingers which were stained with blood was wiped on the tube. As for those on the ground.....it seemed to have come from the blood on his chest.

...

While he was lost in thoughts, startled birds flew out from the forest in the distance.

The sky then gradually grew dark.

He pulled out Zhao Wentu's phone from his coat pocket, but his eyes were still looking at the sky.

There, the sky was clear. There were no clouds or signs of a storm, but the sky was steadily darkening.

It was as if the stopped time was suddenly sped up. From early morning to dusk and then to nightfall, the entire process only took ten seconds.

But he soon realised something.

It wasn't the time that was changing, but that another person had entered this place causing everything to gradually darken.

Fortunately, it wasn't completely dark. It stopped just before late evening.

.

Footsteps could be heard in the distance. The light rustling sounds didn't break the silence of the ruins.

Qin Jiu looked over in the direction of the sound…..

There, there was an opening by the base of the wall. The metal protective fences in that place was broken and twisted such that it formed a broken entranceway. A large mound of broken machinery and scrap metal blocked a part of that opening.

You Huo walked out from behind that pile of machinery. Against the dark night, his tall figure was a little indistinct.

He raised his hand to hold up the twisted fence before bending over and passing through the opening. When he raised his eyes, it met with Qin Jiu's.

He unhurriedly approached him and stopped short before the pile of metal pipes.

This scene was extremely similar to that scene in his memory.....

Despite knowing that both the time and person wasn't right, for a moment Qin Jiu was in daze.

In the end, You Huo broke the silence after looking around: "You're afraid of being alone in the countryside?"

Qin Jiu instantly returned to his senses: "..."

That's true, it really did look similar.

He let out a low laugh and didn't refute. Instead, he similarly looked around and asked You Huo: "What about you? Afraid of the dark?"

You Huo: "...….."

Qin Jiu stretched out his long legs and patted the metal pipe to indicate for You Huo to sit down.

Just as You Huo was about to bend over, he saw the bloodstains.

At that moment, a feeling of extreme rejection suddenly surged inside him. It was clearly something that had already dried up but for some reason it bothered him a lot.

"It's yours?" He suddenly asked.

"No."

Qin Jiu answered very quickly. It was almost done without a thought.

After saying this, he froze. Internally, he could neither cry nor laugh.

Those blood stains were indeed his, but it was something from many years ago. It was not a big deal admitting to it, so he didn't understand why he denied it so quickly.

But since he had already denied it, he continued: "It was there when I came. I don't know who left it."

You Huo stared at those stains for a moment. That feeling of rejection lingered for a long time.

He straightened himself up, turned around and found a scrap machine to sit on.

The overwhelming coverage of one's fears by another's fears mentioned by 021 didn't occur, nor were there any increase in effect as anticipated by 078.

There weren't two of him here, nor two of Qin Jiu.

It was just a ruin site half covered in darkness...…

The scenes of the two of them had actually merged together without a problem. Everything was extremely calm.

"That phone is Zhao Wentu's?" You Huo's eyes fell onto Qin Jiu's hand.

"Mn. He left it with me last time, but it had not been used for a while so for now I can't turn it on." Qin Jiu said.

You Huo said: "You seem to have fiddled with it for a while. Any progress?"

Qin Jiu said: "Much better than last time. I can at least get past the booting up screen." Qin Jiu said.

"And then?"

"And then? It automatically shuts back down."

"...."

You Huo watched him fiddle with it for a while before asking: "Why did you call me over?"

Qin Jiu said: "I called you over? When?"

You Huo: "...Then did your eyes cramp up?"

Qin Jiu oh'ed and pretended to just remember: "I was just feeling sorry for this examinee. As an experienced invigilator and insider, I decided to satisfy your curiosity, so I gave you a hint. If you have anything you wanted to ask, you can come to the confinement room."

Hearing the words "invigilator" and "insider", You Huo's eyes wavered.

021 had spoken too quickly. All the information from earlier was only now being processed.

As for questions, he indeed had some. This was also his purpose of coming here.

"How safe is the confinement room?" You Huo asked.

Qin Jiu took off his watch and unbuttoned his cufflink to reveal his lean and muscular wrist. A few centimetres down from the wrist was a small indicator light about the size of a grain of rice.

"Safe enough for me to reveal all the secrets without this thing here lighting up." Qin Jiu said: "This is the only place in the system that doesn't have its eyes or ears."

He then added: "As far as I know."

"Why?" Asked You Huo.

Qin Jiu: "Because of the original rules. The system can interfere with itself, but it cannot interfere with the examinees."

"So, in a way, examinees can be considered to have the most freedom in this examination system. What you think and do is beyond the systems control. You have the right to do whatever you want including violating the rules, but you will need to bear the consequences."

"The confinement room is the examinee's world. It is a place created based on the examinee's memories and fear. According to the rules of non-intervention, the system cannot spy on them."

"Then what about the invigilators——" You Huo asked then then frowned: "What does that expression of yours mean?"

Qin Jiu shrugged: "Nothing. Just thought that your way of wording things is very interesting."

"What do you mean?"

Qin Jiu said: "I thought you would ask 'What about you guys?' to indicate the division between the two groups. Can I take that as ——-"

You Huo interrupted expressionlessly: "No."

Qin Jiu raised his eyebrow and looked at him for a moment. He then said with a smile that was also not quite a smile: "Alright then, invigilators and examines are different. They..."

This person even emphasised the word "they". You Huo's expression for a moment turned sour.

"They are regarded as a part of the system and can be intervened with when necessary. This includes their actions, and here." Qin Jiu knocked against his temple with his knuckles.

You Huo: "To what extent?"

Qin Jiu was silent for a moment. He then said: "To any degree. It could just be a short moment; it could also be for a long time. Maybe it just wanted to interfere with a thought, maybe it wanted to change up an entire memory."

His eyes narrowed in the dark for a moment. He then added: "It may also be an issue the invigilator themselves. A rumour has been circulating around for a while saying that the original invigilators were not normal people....."

You Huo tilted his head a little. His expression was unclear in the dark night: "The original invigilators? Including the invigilator A you mentioned?"

Qin Jiu said: "Not to mention whether those lead by him are normal, it is also a question whether they can be considered human."

You Huo: "..."

Sitting on the machine, he used one of the handles as a footrest while his other leg hung down lazily. He quietly watched Qin Jiu for a moment before moving his lips: "I remember you saying that you were incompatible with invigilator A?"

"That's what other's say." Qin Jiu remembered the scene of the car taillights in the distance and added: "But it's indeed not very good."

You Huo looked at him expressionlessly for a moment. He finally couldn't help but ask: "Has your mind been interfered with?"

Qin Jiu: "?"

KK has something to say:

*clutches heart and cries bloody tears*