Reunion
Darkness enveloped the entire exhibition hall. The once spacious and tidy hall was now littered with rubble and severed limbs scattered everywhere. Movement was restricted in the dark; even with the aid of night vision goggles to see clearly, Li Nanyi’s vision was limited to what was right in front of him. The rolling stones beneath his feet made it extremely difficult for him to move.
The Weeping Angel roared as it pounced, its claws scraping across the ground, clashing with the photon blade, sending blinding sparks sputtering onto the floor and walls.
Li Nanyi rapidly pulled away, his mecha poised and ready.
10 meters. Twisted limbs touching the ground, hair trailing on the floor, and the click-clack sound of plaster colliding.
Li Nanyi’s hand slid down the side of his leg. Mechanical gears meshed, metal refracting a glint of light as a specially made bullet ejected—crimson warhead, with silver flames carved on the tail.
5 meters. The monster crawled rapidly, its neck bent and broken. Amidst the gaps of hair skewed to the ground were a ferocious face and eyes full of malice.
The bullet slid into the chamber, loaded swiftly. The smooth surface of the gun handle flashed in the pitch darkness.
3 meters. The jaw opened to a terrifying extent, revealing a mouth full of densely packed, sharp teeth. Its entire body stood upright, hands raised high above its head like eagle claws, hair fluttering, almost covering its face.
Li Nanyi raised his gun, his gaze sharp as an arrowhead. The sight aimed at that terrifying face. His breathing was rapid, his whole body tense.
1 meter. The plaster statue, now close at hand, had corners of its mouth grinning to the back of its head. Its hollow eyes reflected the mecha’s cold faceplate. Determined to win, it swung its raised claws down with force, its gaping maw approaching, a foul stench hitting him in the face.
Bang—
He pulled the trigger. A long streak of fire flew from the barrel, dragging an extremely long tail that lit up the darkness. The piercing whistle of breaking air, like a quenched steel knife, sliced through the silence. The moment the warhead touched the stone statue, flames exploded from the core, forming a scorching wave of heat. The Weeping Angel’s face shattered into residue under the violent impact, tumbling to the ground along with its twisted lower body.
Under an impact comparable to an aircraft cannon, it actually still wasn’t dead.
The rubble trembled, seeming to want to gather again. Several blue boxes appeared in Li Nanyi’s field of vision, precisely locking onto the wriggling black shadow beneath the rubble. This was the real reason the stone statue kept reviving.
If the shadow is formless, then—make it reveal its form!
The muzzle aimed at the black shadow. Red-warhead bullets were fired in rapid succession again, erupting with intense bright light and heat waves upon hitting the ground. Flames surged high. Before the black shadow could gather the stone fragments, it was roasted by the scorching fire. As if alive, it curled and shrank, emitting sizzling wails.
To fire these special high-explosive incendiary rounds, the gun had autonomously changed modes. Even wearing the mecha, the powerful recoil of rapid fire numbed Li Nanyi’s wrist.
The stone fragments stopped gathering. That pile of black shadows wailed, slowly melting into the overwhelming flames.
“Ah!”
Sensing something, Bilal let out a loud cry. He almost maniacally overturned the display stand. The shadow beside him frowned: “What’s wrong?”
“I felt it, felt the mecha! Those damned Earth monkeys are using our mechas!”
“He killed my shadow!”
“Mecha… Earthlings… stupid.”
The shadow’s eyes were deep and hollow, flowing with viscous malice. His tone was calm, yet a trace of irrepressible anger could still be heard.
Li Nanyi turned his head abruptly. He heard movement from behind the heavy door. But at this moment, he was still panting. He swept a glance at the mess on the ground and turned to walk in the opposite direction of the noise.
Too much stamina had been consumed; he had to reunite with his teammates first.
“Hey, I say, do you actually know the way?”
Xiang Zhengming turned his head left and right, feeling like this place was a maze. One winding corridor followed another, and he couldn’t find the exit door at all.
Yan Hengze turned back, pushed beyond his limits: “Can you shut up? Can’t you let me have a moment of quiet? Look at your map and find the way, okay?”
Xiang Zhengming quieted down, scoffed, and brought up the 3D map on the screen. He didn’t know why, but even though they were following the map exported by the mecha, they just couldn’t get out, circling around in here constantly.
The corridor was chilly. Although the mecha could regulate their body temperature, Xiang Zhengming still felt a coldness rising from the soles of his feet to his head.
Yan Hengze bent down to check a load-bearing column they passed, his expression grave. The eleventh mark. This was the eleventh circle they had made. Back and forth, this mark had appeared at least several times. It was like nesting dolls; they would circle out of a small maze only to circle into a bigger one.
They had heard a loud boom from the distance just now. It must be from Li Nanyi’s side. He was facing the Weeping Angel alone. Yan Hengze clenched his fist. It was their first collective mission; please don’t let anything happen.
Xiang Zhengming studied the map out of boredom and suddenly discovered a strange point where the routes on the map were irregular yet unified. He carefully zoomed in on the map. The crisscrossing routes wove back and forth, eventually converging at one point. And the sculpture exhibition hall they were in just now was the one closest to there.
Besides that, he also found a straight passage suppressed at the very bottom within the cobweb-like routes. That passage extended all the way to the outside of the museum, seemingly the location of the back door.
“Are you listening to me? Hey!”
Xiang Zhengming pulled his attention from the map and looked up to see Chengying‘s cold faceplate facing him. Yan Hengze stood obliquely, one hand on his hip, talking to him.
He marked that route on the map in red and then packaged and transmitted it to Chengying‘s system. Yan Hengze was frowning, analyzing the situation with him, when suddenly the communication system beeped. He looked up and saw the route marked in red at a glance.
“…”
“I feel like there’s something wrong with this route. Take a look?”
He paused, then still cast a soliciting look at Yan Hengze. Yan Hengze raised his hand to touch his chin, pondering for a moment before saying: “This should be the museum’s employee channel, connecting to the underground garage. Generally, such large museums have dedicated routes for employees to facilitate their management of the entire museum.”
Xiang Zhengming: “All routes lead to one place—the largest central exhibition hall. Our location is the farthest exhibition hall, so…”
“No, we aren’t in the farthest exhibition hall. We are here, a relatively central position.”
A position relatively further back on the screen map was circled. Both fell into silence simultaneously.
The rectangular corridor was like an endless maze. They circled within it, unable to find the way out. Looming black shadows had been interfering with their judgment, making their taut nerves even tighter.
Xiang Zhengming scratched his head irritably, his gaze wandering. Perhaps it was a malfunction, but a light somewhere flickered on with a snap. Xiang Zhengming’s attention was immediately attracted.
Right on the ground beneath where the light had just turned on, the smooth quartz floor seemed to reflect an image completely different from the object above.
He steadied his head, extended his arm, and poked Yan Hengze: “Hey, look, isn’t the reflection there a bit different?”
Yan Hengze turned on the mecha’s built-in light source. The snow-white beam shone on the ground. In just a moment, his expression changed—the reflection on the ground did not match the object on the floor. There were subtle differences that one really couldn’t tell without looking carefully.
“Right, that oil painting is wrong. Hanging there above the ground is a landscape painting of sunflowers, but hanging on the wall in the reflection on the ground is a portrait.”
The oil painting exhibition hall was also divided into areas. Portraits and landscapes were displayed in two locations. If the reflection on the ground was the real one, it only meant this was a visual trap. Somehow, the wall of another exhibition hall had been spliced into this one, creating a hallucination that looked real.
“Hehe, told you I’m amazing.”
Xiang Zhengming placed his hands on his hips triumphantly, raised his head, and laughed twice. Yan Hengze glanced at him, a bit annoyed by his smugness, and curled his lip: “Just average. Still a bit lacking compared to this young master.”
“Tch, I am amazing. I don’t care about you.”
He muttered inwardly that a dog’s mouth couldn’t spit out ivory; he couldn’t expect this young master to say anything nice.
Yan Hengze paused, turned around, and shone the beam on the ground, walking forward along the image on the floor. Xiang Zhengming imitated him, also using his mecha to project a beam.
The reflection on the ground was clear. They walked one after the other for a distance. Yan Hengze stopped. He looked up, examined carefully, then looked down again. Where there was originally a straight long corridor, reflected in the smooth ground was a left turn.
Before he could react, Xiang Zhengming had already reached out to touch that wall.
“Wait…”
Xiang Zhengming’s hand passed through the wall without warning, going straight through. Yan Hengze fell silent, watching this guy stuff himself into the wall step by step. A moment later, his joyous voice came from the other side of the wall: “Hey, Young Master, come here quick, there’s a path here.”
“Silly dog, aren’t you afraid of getting stuck in the wall?”
Yan Hengze muttered a couple of sentences and carefully stepped over from the other side.
Following the same method, they passed through four such intersections. Who knew how many places the creator of the illusion had moved and spliced together? Until finally, all that blocked their way was a blank wall with no works displayed on it.
Yan Hengze touched it and concluded: “This is a solid wall, not an illusion.”
Having reached this point, the two looked at each other through their mechas. Xiang Zhengming took a step forward, swung his arm backward with force, and drew a few vague circles in the air with his right arm: “Watch me. You stand back.”
Tai’a was a heavy mecha, its power index inherently higher than the other mechas. Yan Hengze consciously stood back. Seeing Xiang Zhengming do a few warm-up movements, make a fist with his right hand, draw a circle, and in the next second, punch heavily against the wall.
Boom.
The immense force slammed into it. The wall and the ceiling trembled with a rumble. Wall dust fell with a whoosh. Xiang Zhengming took a few steps back, planning to throw a few more punches, but the wall collapsed with a crash. Large chunks of brick shattered, revealing the heavy door hidden behind the wall.
Yan Hengze stepped forward, took a deep breath, and reached out to push the door open—accompanied by a creaking sound, the long-lost spacious hall came into view.
The two looked up. Standing in the center of the hall was a black and red mecha. Hearing the noise, it was turning its head to look over. The subtle sound of mechanical operation was particularly distinct in the night.
A familiar muffled voice came from the faceplate, carrying a hint of exhaustion and relief: “It’s you guys. Nothing happened, right?”
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