Not long after “Bai Liu” stepped off the train, Bai Liu’s body solidified from its semi-transparent, data-like state. He flexed his fingers thoughtfully. He could now physically touch the passengers around him.
He didn’t know whether his existence had been virtualized because two versions of “Bai Liu” were occupying the same spacetime, or because “Bai Liu” remaining on the train would inevitably lead to his death.
But none of that mattered anymore.
The next stop was [Antique City]. He was still on the train, and in at most three minutes, this train would explode.
“Bai Liu—!!”
Mu Shicheng’s voice came from the next overcrowded carriage. He shoved his way through the packed passengers with visible difficulty, finally reaching Bai Liu’s side. His expression was grim.
“There are too many people here. How are we supposed to find the mirror fragments?!” Mu Shicheng snapped anxiously. “We’re almost at the station! This last train is going to explode before we even arrive!”
“And I already tried it earlier.” Mu Shicheng’s tone sank. “I wanted to get off at the previous station, but I couldn’t. It felt like something on this train was stopping me.”
Bai Liu paid no attention to Mu Shicheng’s panic. Instead, he spoke as though thinking aloud.
“This place is reality. Because the real [you] isn’t on this train, you can’t complete the action of [getting off]. But the [real me] has already gotten off. Which means I can no longer get off a train that [I] have already left.”
He lowered his gaze slightly.
“The causal relationship no longer exists. If I force the action, the game logic breaks.”
“What reality?” Mu Shicheng looked at him warily. “Bai Liu, this isn’t reality. We’re inside a game. Your mental value hasn’t dropped, has it? Are you hallucinating? What are you even talking about?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
Bai Liu tapped Mu Shicheng on the shoulder and pointed at the subway route map fixed to the carriage wall.
“Look carefully. The station before Antique City is Lujia Lane Entrance, not the Reservoir. And this subway line isn’t circular either—it’s linear. This is the subway map from our real world.”
Mu Shicheng followed his finger and immediately noticed it too. His brows drew together.
“But it’s impossible for us to have returned to reality,” he said firmly. “We’re definitely still inside the game.”
Bai Liu continued, as if a thought had finally clicked into place.
“When I say this is [reality], I don’t mean we’ve returned to actual reality. This [reality] only exists relative to the train full of charred corpses we were on earlier. That place wasn’t the true game world. It was merely a mirror world trapped in an endless loop.”
“And the train we’re standing on now—”
Bai Liu lightly tapped the floor with the tip of his shoe, his expression calm.
“—is the reality corresponding to the true game.”
“You could think of it as a parallel timeline generated from possibilities branching off an already completed reality. The prototype for this game is the [Jingcheng Explosion Case]. Usually, games are considered successful if they accurately recreate the event they reference. But this game goes beyond simple recreation.”
“It reconstructed the scene itself.”
Bai Liu looked at Mu Shicheng.
“It brought us back to the exact moment before the explosion. Then, once players intervene at this node, it calculates new possibilities based on our actions, producing entirely different outcomes.”
For example, the first thing Bai Liu did after entering the train was look for himself and Lu Yizhan.
In Bai Liu’s memories, the original Bai Liu hadn’t fallen asleep on the train because of the cold. But the Bai Liu who entered this instance had brought something with him that generated heat—the 380 mirror fragments. When he entered the mirror world, those fragments had automatically transferred into his system inventory.
Bai Liu himself was virtual, but the mirror fragments were real.
His proximity allowed the residual warmth from the fragments to warm the exhausted “Bai Liu,” causing him to genuinely fall asleep. As a result, he failed to follow Lu Yizhan off the train like he had in Bai Liu’s original memories.
But Mu Shicheng had no interest in any of that.
All he cared about was the fact that Bai Liu still understood they were inside the game. With only 1 HP left and less than three minutes before the explosion, Mu Shicheng was practically losing his mind from anxiety. His sole focus was clearing the game, so he immediately caught the key point in Bai Liu’s explanation.
“A mirror world trapped in an endless loop?” Mu Shicheng asked sharply. “What do you mean by endless loop?”
“Don’t you think there was a massive logical flaw in our previous mission to collect mirror fragments?” Bai Liu asked lazily. “Our task was to gather mirror fragments from a last train that was about to explode, right?”
Mu Shicheng nodded.
“Right.”
“But—”
Bai Liu lifted his eyes slightly, looking at Mu Shicheng with a faint smile.
“—if the train hasn’t exploded yet, then where did those fragments produced after the explosion come from?”
“Unless the train had already exploded once, there would be no fragments for us to collect.”
Mu Shicheng froze completely.
Several seconds later, realization finally dawned on him.
“So this really is a train trapped in an endless cycle of explosions...” he muttered blankly. “Collecting the fragments in there was pointless. Once we finished, we probably would’ve been trapped forever inside that endlessly exploding train.”
His expression twisted.
“Fuck... those passengers weren’t trying to stop us because they were enemies. They were trying to save us idiot players.”
“Yes.”
Bai Liu nodded calmly.
“Before I boarded the subway, I noticed the escalators in the station were moving in reverse. Later, even the order of passengers boarding and leaving the train was reversed. To some extent, even our mission itself was reversed.”
“Our task was supposedly to collect mirror fragments. But in reality, the fragments had already been collected by the [passengers]. What we were actually doing was scattering the completed mirror by snatching the fragments away from them.”
He paused briefly.
“And from that perspective, we were the villains, while those passengers were the ones in the right. I think that’s one of the mirror’s defining properties—[reversing the inherent nature of things].”
“Which means,” Bai Liu continued evenly, “the main quest in the mirror world and the true main quest in this reality should also be reversed.”
His gaze remained calm and distant as he idly flipped the coin hanging against his chest.
“In this reality, the train hasn’t exploded yet. Which means the mirror was never shattered to begin with. So if the mission in the mirror world was to collect and reassemble the mirror, then reversing that logic means—”
Mu Shicheng’s eyes widened in sudden understanding.
“We have to break the mirror!”
Bai Liu smiled faintly and snapped his fingers.
“Bingo.”
[System notification: Congratulations to player Bai Liu and player Mu Shicheng for triggering the ultimate main quest—Break the Evil Ghost Mirror and end the endlessly looping Last Train to Blast Off within the mirror.]
[System notification: The 380 mirror fragments carried by Bai Liu have returned to their original positions. Players, please locate the real mirror and destroy it to clear the game.]
Mu Shicheng let out a long breath, still shaken. He looked at Bai Liu and clicked his tongue.
“You... even in a situation like this, your brain still works perfectly?”
A three-minute countdown to explosion. One point of health left.
And this guy still had the composure to calmly deduce the real mission?
Wasn’t he nervous at all?!
“But where’s the mirror?” Mu Shicheng demanded. “This train has six carriages, and there are less than two minutes left. There’s no way we can search them all.”
“No need.”
Bai Liu leaned lazily against the train doors and pointed ahead.
“I’ve ridden this train before. Before I got off, I remember those two thieves were in this carriage. I came straight here, and sure enough, they’re still here.”
He tilted his chin slightly.
“Look. Standing in the middle.”
Mu Shicheng followed his line of sight and spotted two suspicious-looking passengers—one adult and one child—standing amid the crowd. Between them was a large suitcase, easily big enough to conceal a mirror. Nearby stood several formally dressed individuals who looked like museum staff.
Mu Shicheng immediately understood. They were the thief brothers.
He glanced sideways at Bai Liu, momentarily speechless.
“You already noticed them ages ago. Why didn’t you go over there yourself? Why were you just standing around?”
Bai Liu spread his hands innocently and smiled.
“I was waiting for the great thief Mu Shicheng to steal the mirror, of course. How could someone like me possibly snatch something from professional thieves? Naturally, that job belongs to you.”
Mu Shicheng stared at him for a second before slowly curling his lips into a sneer.
“You really know how to avoid unnecessary work.”
The instant he finished speaking, his entire demeanor changed.
His expression turned cold and razor-focused. He adjusted his earphones, pulled the hood of his sweatshirt low over his eyes, and swung his right arm diagonally backward. Sharp monkey claws instantly formed around his hand.
Then he moved.
His body flashed through the carriage like a phantom.
Bai Liu barely saw what happened before the thief brothers suddenly screamed:
“The mirror’s gone—!! THIEF!!!”
The entire carriage exploded into chaos.
Before Bai Liu could react, he felt someone grab the back of his collar. Hood pulled low over his face, Mu Shicheng carried the suitcase in one hand while hauling Bai Liu up with the other. Wearing a reckless grin, he sprinted along the carriage walls with terrifying speed.
Behind them came the furious, breathless screams of the thief brothers:
“Catch that thief!!!”
Mu Shicheng flicked out his blade expressionlessly and uttered a single word.
“Move.”
The ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) surrounding passengers shrieked and scattered in panic, fleeing into the neighboring carriages. Mu Shicheng ran all the way to the final carriage, frightening away the remaining passengers there as well until the entire carriage was completely empty.
“Impressive, Mu Shicheng.” Bai Liu looked around at the instantly cleared carriage and praised him sincerely. “You’re actually quite talented at doing bad things.”
Mu Shicheng raised an eyebrow.
“Same to you.”
Bai Liu crouched down and opened the suitcase.
Inside was the mirror.
Completely intact.
The instant Bai Liu propped it upright, a shrill system alert rang out.
[System warning: The moment the mirror is broken, a God-level NPC will emerge from within. All players standing before the mirror will be attacked indiscriminately. Players are advised to exercise caution when destroying the mirror!]
If they were attacked by a God-level NPC now, both Bai Liu and Mu Shicheng would die instantly with their current HP.
The smile vanished from Mu Shicheng’s face.
The empty carriage was filled only with the roar of rushing wind outside the speeding train and the muffled sobs of the frightened passengers drifting from the neighboring carriage.
Then the subway announcement sounded in its usual sweet female voice:
“Now arriving at the terminal station—”
