Chapter 77: Ruins

The next morning, the moment the barrier dissipated, White Night felt something different.

With every breath, she could smell blood in the air.

Su Shuang’er was the first to stand up.

She hadn’t slept well last night.

White Night knew this, because she had tossed and turned the entire night, never once taking her hand off the bicycle frame.

‘Auntie Frost is probably troubled by that other soul inside her, but there’s nothing I can do.’

Mu Yingying sat up, rubbing her neck, grumbling.

“I’m more tired than if I hadn’t slept at all.”

Dark circles hung beneath her peach blossom eyes, and her hair was a mess.

Mu Yingying hadn’t slept well either. She had actually been curious about the soul inside Su Shuang’er and wanted to observe it secretly at night.

In the end, she observed nothing—that thing didn’t come out.

White Peace was already standing at the edge of the rock platform.

Her eyes were closed as she perceived everything around her.

Her gaze turned eastward.

White Night followed her line of sight and froze.

The eastern sky was wrong.

It was a dark red, like blood, as if it were flowing.

The blood rolled.

White Night pulled her gaze away from the sky and looked at the ground.

“Let’s go.”

White Peace took a step.

“But from now on, don’t look at that sky.”

“It will make you lose your mind.”

Su Shuang’er’s mouth twitched.

She hesitated, wanting to say it was too dangerous, but then she thought her own strength wasn’t good enough, and questioning White Peace might make her seem petty.

She looked down. The black rock was getting narrower.

At the narrowest point, it was less than a foot wide.

“We can still walk,” she said.

She pushed the bicycle, searching for footholds.

Every step was steady, careful.

White Night nestled in the bike basket, alertly scanning her surroundings.

White Peace walked at the front.

Her bare feet stepped on the black rock, unhurried.

Mu Yingying brought up the rear.

She had sheathed the Tang Dao; in a place like this, the blade was useless.

She needed both hands free to keep her balance.

The four of them descended into the canyon.

After about two hours, the scene ahead stopped everyone in their tracks.

Before them was a vast, endless ruin.

Broken skyscrapers, collapsed bridges, twisted metal frames, shattered glass curtain walls.

It was a destroyed city—larger than any ruin White Night had ever seen in the apocalypse.

The sky above the ruins was the same color they had just seen.

A transparent base with flowing iridescence, shifting between blue and purple, rolling slowly.

“That’s the Deep Abyss.”

White Peace stood before the maelstrom. Her white hair was lifted gently by some invisible current.

Her pitch-black eyes reflected the ruins, calm and unruffled.

She had seen too many places like this.

“The remains of a destroyed world.”

“Dead?” White Night didn’t understand. “Worlds can die too?”

“Yes.”

White Peace’s voice was flat, as if stating a fact.

“Worlds are like people—they live and die.”

“This world is still alive, so it has a sky, soil, Weirdness, and people.”

“But the world in the Deep Abyss is already dead.”

“The sky has stopped breathing, the land has lost its vitality. Only the remains of buildings remain, and…”

She paused.

“. . .the dirty things left behind in the rubble.”

“What things?”

“Weirdness. Of course, before I had Flesh Transformation, I counted as a weirdness too. Little White Night, are you afraid of the old me?”

“No,” White Night said. “From the first time I saw you, An’an, I felt you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Mmm~”

White Peace couldn’t help leaning in, rubbing her cheek against White Night’s.

But she stopped there and continued to stay alert to the surroundings.

Even though she was strong, she didn’t let her guard down.

Caution never hurts.

White Night looked at the other side of the gate.

The ruins were deathly still. No wind, no sound, even the dust drifted slowly.

It was as if time in that world moved several times slower than here.

“Then let’s go in and take a look,” White Peace said.

“We’ll find enough Ghost Crystals and then pull out.”

“Okay, let’s go.”

Su Shuang’er raised no objection in the end.

Mu Yingying flexed her wrists, pulled the Tang Dao from her back, and held it horizontally in front of her.

“Another world—maybe there’s good stuff to eat.”

White Peace didn’t say anything else.

She turned around and took the first step.

Her bare foot stepped forward.

As she entered the ruins, she paused.

She turned back and glanced at White Night.

Her pitch-black eyes reflected White Night.

“Stay close to me.”

She turned and walked into the ruins.

Her figure was swallowed by the distorted air, like sinking into water.

First her bare feet, then the hem of her dress, then her waist and white hair.

Finally disappearing was that gaze she had cast back at White Night.

Su Shuang’er pushed the bicycle and followed.

As she entered the ruins, she shuddered all over.

Mu Yingying took a deep breath.

“Damn it.”

She cursed under her breath, as if to embolden herself, then followed.

Inside the ruins, all of White Night’s perceptions went haywire.

The compass in the basket let out a faint crack and then went completely dead.

The process lasted about three seconds, then everything stabilized.

She saw endless ruins.

Even more desolate than from outside.

They stood on a main road full of cracks.

On both sides of the road were broken skyscrapers, each one more than ten times taller than the walls of Hundred Flowers Town.

Their outer walls were made of a glass-like substance, but they were all shattered.

The shattered debris lay scattered on the road, crunching underfoot.

Those fragments were cold—so cold they made your fingers freeze at a touch.

The sky was right overhead.

That flowing, blood-red iridescence was clearer here.

The sheen drifted slowly from east to west, like an inverted river of blood.

No sun, no moon, but the sky itself emitted a bloody light.

Mu Yingying stood in the middle of the road, slowly turning in a circle.

She looked at the ruins around them, and for the first time, the playfulness was completely gone from her voice.

White Peace stood ahead of her, bare feet stepping on the shattered debris. The fragments crumbled into finer powder under her soles.

She looked up silently at the sky.

White Night tried to summon the compass, but the needle didn’t move.

“It’s completely dead,” White Night said.

White Peace glanced at it.

“Once you enter a place like this, it’s just a piece of iron.”

“Then the direction…”

“I can sense it.”

White Peace looked up, her pitch-black eyes sweeping across the road ahead and then over the ruins on both sides.

Her gaze paused in one direction, as if she was reading the world.

“We’ll go straight along this road first,” she said.

“We shouldn’t have to go far to find Ghost Crystals. Once we’ve gathered enough, we’ll go back.”

Her tone was calm.

Su Shuang’er nodded.

Mu Yingying rolled her shoulders.

“Fine, I’ll follow your lead. But I’ll say it now—this place is seriously off. I suggest we go in and out fast.”

“That’s my plan too,” White Peace said.

White Night put the compass back into the basket, tucking it into the bottom compartment with the letter.

The four of them headed deeper into the road.

White Peace led the way, bare feet crunching the shattered fragments into finer dust.

Her white hair hung behind her, and the hem of her black skirt swept the ground, not raising a single speck of dust.

Su Shuang’er followed second, pushing the bicycle with steady steps, her eyes scanning the ruins on both sides.

Mu Yingying brought up the rear, Tang Dao in hand, her peach blossom eyes having shed their usual laziness.

White Night floated above the bike basket, watching White Peace still unhurried and composed.

Seeing White Peace’s calm demeanor, she felt a little more at ease.