“If you’re so desperate to get to the Assembly Zone, why have you spent three days lingering here in Energy?” Mu Sichen asked.

Shen Jiyue countered with a question of his own. “When the lady with you tricked the supervisor into pressing the button repeatedly, what notification did she receive?”

“It told me to rest for a few days,” Chi Lian answered. “And that I could move freely within the Energy Zone during that time.”

“That’s exactly why,” Shen Jiyue explained. “Even if you inject all your emotions at once, you still have to wait out the mandatory rest period before you’re allowed into the Assembly Zone. I tried pressing the button three times right at the start, and I’ve been stuck ‘resting’ ever since. I have no idea how much longer I have to wait. I doubt I’ll beat Yao Wangping there this time.”

He took a lonely sip of his drink.

If this were just about fulfilling a pact with Qin Zhou, losing to Yao Wangping wouldn’t be a tragedy. As long as Yao destroyed the Pillar, the domain would collapse, the town’s protection would vanish, and Qin Zhou could step in to deal with Big Eye personally.

But Mu Sichen had his own mission. To secure food for the sanitarium, he had to claim the factory’s Pillar for himself. If he failed, his previous efforts would be wasted; the sanitarium’s Pillar would crumble, and the players’ lives would likely be forfeit.

The situation wasn’t just difficult—it was a race against time.

The crux of this mission wasn’t finding the Pillar’s location, but physically reaching it. At the sanitarium, it was a game of shadows; Big Eye had exerted all its effort to hide the Pillar’s physical form. Here at the factory, it was an open secret. Everyone knew where it was; the challenge was surviving the journey.

If you discarded all your emotions to reach the Pillar, you’d arrive without the will to fight. You might even forget why you were risking your life in the first place. The Pillar stood there, a beacon that drew people in only to strip them of the very agency required to oppose it.

Preserving one’s humanity while infiltrating the heart of the factory—that was the true mission.

Given this, Mu Sichen suspected that even Yao Wangping might struggle. Even if Yao reached the Pillar, could he maintain his faith? Without that ironclad belief in Qin Zhou, Yao wouldn’t be able to wield the Guardian’s Sword or draw power from the Totem.

“Thanks for the intel,” Mu Sichen told Shen Jiyue. “We have things to do. I hope we meet again. And I hope when we do, you’re still you.”

Shen Jiyue’s current state was already subtly different from their last meeting. There was no telling what price he had paid or which emotions he had surrendered to get this far. A human is a walking contradiction of complex feelings; once those are gone, what remains?

“I’d love to promise you that,” Shen Jiyue said with a wry smile. “But I suspect our next meeting won’t be quite like this one.”

Mu Sichen nodded and led Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo back to his suite. Employees who had finished their quotas were allowed to visit one another, play games, or watch movies.

Once inside, Cheng Xubo collapsed onto the floor and downed the can of Cola Mu Sichen had given him in one long, desperate go. “How are we supposed to win this? They haven’t left us a single path out.”

Chi Lian looked wistful. “That Shen Jiyue is so handsome. It’s a shame to think of him turning into a mindless husk. Captain, can’t we help him?”

“We help him by finding the Pillar and taking over the factory,” Mu Sichen replied.

“True. But how?” Chi Lian absentmindedly plucked at a plush toy on the sofa. “If only my ‘Cut and Paste’ was stronger. I’d just snip the Energy Zone and the Breeding Grounds out and swap their places.”

“Actually… my ability could technically do that,” Cheng Xubo said, hesitant but honest. “I could put you two in my cart. A normal person can survive in there for an hour—it’s incredibly uncomfortable, but possible. Then I could press the button, flush my emotions, and they’d send me down to Assembly. I could take you with me.”

“But then you’d be the sacrifice,” Chi Lian said.

“Well, obviously I don’t want to!” Cheng Xubo protested. “I’m just pointing out the possibility. If you actually tried to sacrifice me, I’d fight you to the death. We’d be tearing each other apart until one side stopped moving.”

“Wow, you’re quite the strategist,” Chi Lian remarked. “Tossing out the solution and then making us the villains for considering it?”

Cheng Xubo actually nodded at the description. “I’m a survivor. I figured the Captain would think of this anyway, and if he asked me to sacrifice myself, I might not be able to say no. Better to lay it all out now and give myself a fair chance to resist.”

Chi Lian didn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed. He was being selfish, yet he was being completely transparent about it. He was a man who wanted to help but wasn’t willing to die for it—a perfectly ordinary human being, contradictions and all.

Mu Sichen chuckled. “I never considered that plan, and it wouldn’t work anyway. Don’t forget, once you lose your emotions, you have to stay here to finish your ‘vacation’ before they move you. You have dozens of colors on your badge; we don’t have dozens of days to wait.”

They didn’t even have twelve hours. Once “Daylight” hit at 10:00 AM, Big Eye would wake up and purge the “Depraved” elements. Yao Wangping could hide behind a mutilated face, but Mu Sichen was a marked man. He had peeked at the God during the final second of the previous Day; he was etched into its memory. He was only safe now because the “Night” forced the God to close its eyes to conserve power.

“Oh. Well, that’s a relief,” Cheng Xubo said, though a hint of strange disappointment lingered in his voice, as if he’d lost his chance to be a tragic hero.

“I tried swapping badges,” Chi Lian added. “After the Captain’s message, I dealt with my supervisor in five minutes. I spent the rest of the time at the swimming pool. Not to swim, obviously, but to see if people took their badges off to change. They don’t. They pin them to their swimwear and never let them go. I managed to swap one with a guy who was napping, but the colors just bled back to their original states. The system even refunded my energy points because the skill failed.”

Mu Sichen breathed a sigh of relief at the mention of the refund.

“It seems badges are different from roles like ‘Doctor’ or ‘Patient,'” Mu Sichen analyzed. “To the Pillar, those roles are just labels for fuel. But a badge represents your soul. You can swap the plastic, but the essence of the soul doesn’t change, and it eventually forces the physical badge to reflect the truth.”

“So we’re stuck?” Chi Lian sighed.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Mu Sichen said. “We don’t know enough about the factory rules. I suspect Shen Jiyue held a few things back. I don’t believe in ‘luck,’ but we have time, and sitting here in despair won’t help. It’s like a mountain of homework—better to start on the first page than cry over the total count.”

He looked at them. “We can move freely. For the next two hours, let’s talk to everyone we see. Haven’t you noticed? The followers here are incredibly talkative.”

“Yes!” Chi Lian agreed. “My supervisor wouldn’t shut up. Even if I didn’t ask, he kept rambling.”

“Mine too,” Cheng Xubo added. “Totally different from the sanitarium. Everyone there was like a zombie.”

“Different rules,” Mu Sichen explained. “The sanitarium was a zero-sum game. Everyone was competing for survival and eyeballs. But here? Why do you think they talk so much? Under what circumstances do people lose their filter?”

Chi Lian thought for a second. “I don’t tell colleagues everything. I’m careful with my parents and even my boyfriend. I’d never just… monologue at someone.”

Cheng Xubo let out a little chuckle. “I tell my wife everything.”

Chi Lian was shocked. “You’re married? Since when does a man tell his wife everything?”

Mu Sichen smiled. “His ‘wife’ is a collection of figurines, isn’t she?”

“Bingo,” Cheng Xubo said. “A whole wall of them!”

“Oh! Well, I have a dozen 2D ‘husbands’ I talk to…” Chi Lian trailed off as the realization hit.

“Exactly,” Mu Sichen said. “My supervisor didn’t talk to me; he talked at me. He didn’t see me as an equal. To him, I was an object. A piece of fried chicken. They explain the rules because it’s a necessary step in the ‘cooking’ process—like washing vegetables. Outside of that, they look down on us. We need to use that arrogance.”

Arrogance leads to carelessness. Carelessness leads to information.

“We’ll split up,” Mu Sichen directed. “One toward Assembly, one toward the Breeding Grounds, and one toward the main gate. Map out the boundaries. See what the barriers are and if there’s a way to slip through.”

Suddenly, the dead end didn’t look so final.

“I’m starting to understand what ‘Hope’ means,” Chi Lian said softly. “It’s not just wishing for something. It’s having a goal and turning it into a plan. Without action, hope is just a ghost in Pandora’s box. To keep it alive, you have to let it drive you.”

“I ‘hope’ to reach the Pillar, so I’m going to pry some secrets out of these guards,” Cheng Xubo said. “That’s my hope.”

Both followers looked at Mu Sichen and said in unison: “I know exactly what kind of ‘Ideal Town’ I want to help you build.”

Mu Sichen finally realized the difference between his followers and Qin Zhou’s. Yao Wangping was terrifyingly strong and determined, but he was an extension of his God. If the God fell, Yao would be nothing. But Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo were independent. They used Mu Sichen’s energy, but the creativity and agency were their own. They didn’t just follow; they innovated.

“I’ll take the Breeding Grounds,” Mu Sichen said. It was likely the most dangerous perimeter.

“Then I’ll take the main gate,” Chi Lian said. “It’s the ‘safest,’ but that means the guards will be the most relaxed. I might even run into an assembly worker to interrogate.”

As they set off, Mu Sichen limped toward his destination, his broken arm heavy. Suddenly, the backpack shifted. A tentacle reached out and wrapped around his injured limb.

A strange warmth flooded his arm. Mu Sichen removed the splint to find the fracture completely healed. In its place was a new tattoo circling his forearm—a sleek, mechanical-looking tentacle.

Inside the bag, the octopus had sacrificed one of its limbs. It now gripped the remaining snacks with its seven remaining tentacles, looking at Mu Sichen with an expression that clearly said: ‘Try giving away another soda, I dare you.’

Mu Sichen didn’t know whether to laugh or be touched. “Why is your personality so different from your followers?” he whispered.

Qin Zhou’s people were cold, logical, and sacrificial. Yet this totem was incredibly… human. It had changed since coming to the real world. It liked warm blankets and got grumpy if woken up early.

“You’ve changed,” Mu Sichen noted. “It’s as if…”

As if a cold deity was accidentally catching a case of humanity.

He suddenly remembered: Chi Lian and Cheng Xubo could only log out because they were marked with the Totem of the Self. The octopus wasn’t a living creature, yet it displayed life-like traits. How could it cross between worlds so easily?

Mu Sichen reached back and flipped the octopus over on its back. The doll struggled wildly, righting itself and glaring at him with narrowed eyes.

But Mu Sichen had seen it. At the base of the seven tentacles, there was a tiny, faint mark.

A Totem of the Self.

When had it been marked? When he purified the sanitarium? When he kicked out the other believers? Or when it clung to him and insisted on following him home?

The octopus wasn’t exactly his “follower,” but it was borrowing his power, just as Mu Sichen had once borrowed Qin Zhou’s. It seemed that by being around him, the God’s avatar was becoming a bit more like a person.

Author’s Note:

Mu Sichen: Qin Zhou… do you belong to me now?

Qin Zhou (tentacles waving frantically): I-I only recorded your totem so I could keep track of your debt! That’s all!