If Du Sanying had been there, he would have been screaming for everyone to run. He could already sense that something was deeply wrong with the mirror.
Unfortunately, he was still reeling from the blow to his head and hadn’t made it over yet.
Perhaps that, in itself, was his luck—allowing him to avoid this disaster entirely.
“What exactly was inside the mirror...” Mu Shicheng muttered. “What did Zhang Kui see before it exploded?”
Bai Liu, meanwhile, felt that he was equally unlucky.
For someone who couldn’t swim, he kept ending up in water-themed games. In that sense, he truly was a “watery” player, despite hating water and not knowing how to swim at all.
With a silent sigh, Bai Liu paddled awkwardly through the water in a clumsy dog-paddle toward Mu Shicheng’s carriage.
Mu Shicheng honestly recounted everything he had seen before adding, “No matter what Zhang Kui was trying to say, our priority right now is finding the last twenty mirror fragments. Where do you think they could be?”
“They can’t be on the passengers. Antique City is the terminal station—people only get off there, they don’t board.” Mu Shicheng rubbed his chin in thought. “Could the fragments be somewhere inside the station itself? But we already came through Antique City earlier. I searched the area back then and didn’t find anything.”
“We’ve also searched the train multiple times already. There’s no way they’re hidden on the roof...” Mu Shicheng continued analyzing aloud. “Could another batch of passengers board later at Antique City?”
“I know what Zhang Kui was trying to tell you,” Bai Liu interrupted suddenly.
Mu Shicheng paused. “What?”
He turned sharply toward Bai Liu.
“What did he say was inside the mirror?”
Bai Liu looked toward the mirror resting at the bottom of the carriage, his gaze darkening slightly.
“The final monster is inside the mirror.”
Mu Shicheng froze.
“All the mirror fragments we’ve encountered so far were hidden inside monsters,” Bai Liu continued. “Whether it was the Exploding Passengers or the Thief Brothers, every fragment was embedded in their bodies. And our Monster Book is still missing the final page. That means there’s still one last monster left.”
He lowered his eyes toward the mirror.
“The remaining twenty fragments are most likely inside that final monster.”
Mu Shicheng frowned. “Then what exactly is the final monster? Monsters in games are usually based on dead people or animals. According to the explosion case reports, aside from the passengers, only the Thief Brothers died. They’re the only ones suitable to become monsters.”
His expression shifted slightly.
“Don’t tell me it’s some ghost inside the mirror? But that doesn’t make sense. There weren’t any clues before this, and we never triggered any storyline related to a mirror ghost.”
“No.” Bai Liu shook his head. “You overlooked something. There doesn’t need to be a ghost inside the mirror.”
His eyes lifted calmly.
“One more thing died in that explosion.”
Mu Shicheng stared blankly.
Bai Liu said quietly:
“The mirror itself shattered.”
Mu Shicheng abruptly snapped his head toward the mirror.
“You mean—” His voice tightened. “The mirror is the final monster?”
“Yes.” Bai Liu crouched slightly in the water, staring at the mirror with narrowed eyes. “What Zhang Kui was trying to tell you was exactly that—the final monster is the mirror.”
Something clicked in Bai Liu’s mind as he spoke.
“There was something bothering me earlier. The system announcement said Zhang Kui exited the game because his Mental Value hit zero.”
His gaze sharpened.
“That’s strange. He was at the center of the explosion. His Health Points should’ve dropped into the danger zone first. Yet he died because his sanity collapsed.”
Bai Liu glanced sideways at Mu Shicheng.
“At first I thought you’d used some kind of torture item on him.”
Mu Shicheng looked offended. “Do I look that bored?”
“But apparently not.” Bai Liu returned his attention to the mirror. “Which means something else drove Zhang Kui’s Mental Value to zero.”
His eyes settled on the broken surface below.
“Something like this mirror.”
Previously, Bai Liu had assumed the mirror fragments empowered the monsters, which was why they weakened whenever fragments were removed.
“But after what you reminded me about the Jingcheng Explosion Case...” Bai Liu’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “I don’t think that’s correct anymore.”
“In the real case, the Thief Brothers feared the mirror. Since this game is modeled after that incident, it wouldn’t make sense for the fragments to strengthen them.”
Mu Shicheng grabbed onto a hanging strap to steady himself in the current.
“Then how do you explain the monsters weakening every time we took a fragment?”
“Think about it differently.” Bai Liu floated closer to the mirror surface, studying it carefully. “This mirror shattered into four hundred pieces inside the train. Yet every single fragment ended up inside either the passengers or the Thief Brothers.”
He spoke slowly.
“If the mirror had simply exploded, there’s no way every shard would coincidentally lodge itself inside a body. Even less likely for every fragment to end up embedded precisely in the areas they protect most carefully.”
Mu Shicheng’s brows knitted tighter.
“...That is strange.”
“The only reasonable explanation,” Bai Liu said quietly, “is that the fragments weren’t distributed by the explosion at all.”
His gaze sharpened.
“The monsters collected them themselves.”
Mu Shicheng stared at him.
“And after collecting them,” Bai Liu continued, “they hid the fragments in the most important parts of their bodies.”
“They collected them themselves?!” Mu Shicheng sounded genuinely shocked. “But didn’t you say they were afraid of the mirror?”
“Yes,” Bai Liu replied. “Which is exactly why they needed to collect the fragments.”
His voice grew heavier.
“There are actually two groups gathering mirror fragments in this game: us... and the passengers.”
“We’re collecting them because we want to restore the mirror.”
“The passengers are collecting them because they want ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) to stop us.”
He looked down at the broken reflection below.
“They fear this mirror. They don’t want it completed. So they hide the fragments they’ve gathered inside different bodies—inside their most vital points—to keep them away from us.”
“And we’re the ones stealing them back.”
Mu Shicheng’s pupils contracted slightly.
“The reason they weakened after losing fragments wasn’t because the fragments strengthened them,” Bai Liu said softly. “It was because the thing they feared fell into our hands.”
“They weakened... because they were afraid of us.”
Mu Shicheng was stunned.
“But why?” he asked hoarsely. “Why would the passengers and monsters do something like this?”
“There’s only one explanation.”
Bai Liu’s eyes fixed on the mirror.
“I think this mirror is the reason they became monsters in the first place.”
The instant the words left his mouth, the mirror at the bottom of the carriage suddenly lit up.
Flames burst to life inside it.
And within those flames stood Zhang Kui.
His eyes aligned perfectly with the triangular gap in the mirror’s center, making it seem as though he couldn’t see properly. Confused, he staggered around inside the reflection, knocking against invisible barriers.
“Where is this?” he muttered blankly.
But he didn’t have long to wonder.
Fire erupted behind him.
The flames surged forward violently, engulfing him.
Zhang Kui screamed and fled in terror, desperately pounding against the mirror surface as though trying to escape, but the fire chased him relentlessly.
There was nowhere to run.
Soon, the flames consumed him completely, burning him into a crackling blackened corpse.
Exactly like the passengers.
“I wondered before why there were so many severely burned corpses in an explosion case,” Bai Liu said while calmly watching Zhang Kui char into black ash inside the mirror.
“Most explosion deaths are caused by blast trauma. It’s actually rare for victims to be burned to death outright.”
He tilted his head slightly.
“But every monster we’ve encountered—the Exploding Passengers, the Thief Brothers—shared the exact same appearance.”
“Burned corpses.”
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow.
“I think I understand now.”
At last, the flames inside the mirror slowly faded.
Zhang Kui’s charred body vanished along with them.
The mirror surface became clean and bright once more, clearly reflecting the interior of the carriage.
Except for one difference.
Inside the reflection, a mirror fragment rested on the train floor.
“It looks like we found the final fragment,” Bai Liu said thoughtfully. “Just as expected—it was hidden inside the final monster.”
[System Notification: Congratulations to player Bai Liu for completing all background settings for “The Last Train to Blast Off.” Entering final prologue—Train in the Mirror.]
[System Notification: Congratulations to player Bai Liu for unlocking the complete Monster Book.]
[“The Last Train to Blast Off Monster Book” Updated—Exploding Passengers (1/3)]
[Monster Name: Exploding Passengers]
[Traits: Extremely high movement speed (1000 movement speed, fire grants bonus effects)]
[Weaknesses: Mirror fragments, water, Ghost Mirror]
[Attack Method: Contact with flames from the Exploding Passengers decreases both Health Points and Mental Value.]
[“The Last Train to Blast Off Monster Book” Updated—Thief Brothers (2/3)]
[Monster Names: Thief Gege, Thief Didi]
[Traits: Thief Gege possesses extremely high movement speed (3400 movement speed, fire grants bonus effects) and specializes in theft / Thief Didi possesses immense strength, towering size, and extremely high movement speed, and may unleash a large-scale attack once per minute (1400 movement speed, fire grants bonus effects; when enraged, he prefers beating opponents into submission with overwhelming attack power).]
[Weaknesses: Mirror fragments, water, Ghost Mirror]
[Attack Methods: Scratching, theft / Flame shockwave, violent smashing.]
[“The Last Train to Blast Off Monster Book” Updated—Ghost Mirror (3/3)]
[Monster Name: Ghost Mirror]
[Traits: ??? (Unknown, system unable to analyze)]
[Weaknesses: None (Players are not required to discover this monster’s weaknesses)]
[Attack Methods: ??? (Unknown, awaiting discovery)]
[You have triggered the game’s God-level NPC: Ghost Mirror!!]
[The survival rate for “The Last Train to Blast Off” is rapidly decreasing. Recalculating... Original clear rate: 23%. Current clear rate: ??%!!]
[Warning! Warning! This NPC is extremely dangerous. No known weaknesses currently exist. Once this NPC initiates an attack, players cannot escape through exploiting weaknesses. Death is inevitable. Players are advised to accelerate game progress and leave the instance before the NPC begins hunting.]
[The God-level NPC awakens once all mirror fragments are collected. Players are advised to leave the game immediately after obtaining all fragments!]
“Wow.” Bai Liu looked at the panel with genuine curiosity.
He didn’t seem nervous in the slightest.
“God-level NPCs are supposed to be incredibly rare, aren’t they? How did I run into another one?”
Mu Shicheng, on the other hand, looked like his sanity was about to collapse entirely.
After checking his own panel, his face shifted from pale to green.
He stared at Bai Liu with a warped expression that looked dangerously close to murderous intent, grinding his teeth as though resisting the urge to strangle him on the spot.
“You really do deserve that Luck Value of zero.”
Bai Liu merely shrugged.
“If heaven insists on making me this ‘lucky,’ there’s nothing I can do about it.”
